Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification Paperback – Illustrated, 20 Jun. 2013

First and foremost, this is a book for learning Plant Families, as it's sub-title clearly states. It is not meant to be a field guide, as one negative reviewer complained about.Learning plants is hugely time consuming, and can seem daunting to the beginner. Yet every plant belongs within a family, and once you learn the "pattern of the family", it becomes a lot easier to narrow down your search. If you are a forager or herbalist this will be hugely important and extremely useful to you. Unlike botanists, who need to be "species specific".It will also help you ID plant families around the world. Not just in the UK or United States. I've used it to find plants in Africa, India and Asia!Foragers and herbalists oftentimes only need to know the family the plant belongs to. Simply because some species within a family are all edible EG. Mallow Family... With that in mind this book is the best there is on the market. And I own a huge number of different plant ID books, yet still keep returning to this fantastic resource time and again.This book has enabled me to identify food and medicine plants anywhere in the world... and I travel a lot! A fantastic resource for beginners who are interested in foraging for wild edible plants or wildcrafting herbs for plant medicine... as well as beginner botanists.

This book so really easy to read so plant families etc. Seem not so confusing. I would definitely recommend

Highly recommended to those new to plant identification (perfect for schools as well). It's easy to understand, doesn't blind you with scientific terms and what you learn within the first few pages makes you want to get out there and get started. Thomas Elpel has a real passion for plant life especially for those that benefits humans so most of the examples within the book also have a brief description of medicinal and edible uses. No matter if you have a vague interest in botany or bushcraft or the countryside in general you should definitely consider reading this book, you'll be amazed how much you learn in the first day.Botany in a Day is changing the way people learn about plants! Tom's book has gained a worldwide audience almost exclusively by word-of-mouth. It is now used as a text and recommended by herbal and wilderness schools across North America. Instead of presenting individual plants, Botany in a Day unveils the patterns of identification and uses among related plants, giving readers simple tools to rapidly unlock the mysteries of the new species they encounter throughout the continent.Too often people try to learn plants one-at-a-time, without rhyme or reason. Now you can cut years off the process of learning about plants and their uses. Tom's book helps you beyond the piece-meal approach to botany and herbalism towards a more "whole" approach. Within 1 1/2 hours you can understand the big-picture of botany and herbalism. Learn how related plants have similar features for identification. Discover how they often have similar properties and similar uses.Tom's book takes you beyond the details towards a greater understanding of the patterns among plants. By mid-morning you can be in the field, matching flowers to the patterns in the book. Instead of learning plants one-at-a-time you will discover that you can learn them by the dozens--just by looking for patterns.Most plant books cover only one or two hundred species. Botany in a Day includes more than 100 plant families and over 700 genera--applicable to many thousands of species.By the end of the day you will have a functional knowledge of botany. You will be able to continue growing your knowledge of plants and plant patterns--in the wild, in your garden, among house plants, even at the florist. Understand the magic of patterns among plants, and the world will never look the same again!

This is the plant identification book I've always been dreaming of.Most plant identification guides give you a lot of complex information and leave you to work out how to absorb it and organise it in your head. The fact is that with most identification guides it's only by getting out in the field and keying out the plants you see that you build up that knowledge. However the problem with them can be overly technical language which more often than not causes you to require several attempts before getting it right, if at all.That's not the case with this book. It starts by giving you a grounding in the basic terminology that you need to know, and no more than is required (rather than having to be an expert in plant anatomy). As someone who has struggled with plant and flower anatomy in the past I just found that this book put it all together in a way that just lodged in my head and stayed there very quickly - from working out whether something is a dicot or a monocot, to being able to identify how many carpels a flower has.Before I purchased this book I was put off by the fact that it is focused on the plants of North America and that a review on this website mentioned a possible dangerous confusion between the common names of plants with the Americans having the same name for a safe plant over there as an entirely different species over here which is highly dangerous. However by focusing on the latin names rather than the common names that problem can be easily circumvented.Additionally, it's not a major issue that some of the species can only be found in North America as a large focus of the book is narrow identification down to specific families of plants, from which point you can focus in on that family using local field guides.

For years I was looking at printouts from the website and with some initial success identifying Mustard, none came after. So I decided to get the book as printing off colour photos for the plants was not practical. I expected the book would be simple but it has a complex way of presenting the first two chapters which are a mandatory read. I cannot understand why. And it also peddles Evolution theory heavily even though it is unnecessary and also unfounded. With such a bad start to a community I admired online I was about to regret this purchase, until I used the book to identify a Geranium family plant in the garden.