HERB HUNTER - How to get started

While there are a lot of edible plants out in the wild, there are also many medicinal plants. Those are the ones I'm talking about here.

Before you go out and just start pulling up weeks, plucking flowers, or peeling bark off of trees, there are some preliminary things you need to do first.

1. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Invest in some good field guides for plants/wildflowers in your area. Read them and study them BEFORE you go out trying to collect. If you wait until you're out in the field to open up your guides, then that's too late.

Note that I said "guides" and not "guide." It's important to have several different reliable references in order to make a good comparison of pictures and descriptions to ensure that you have a positive identification of the plant. Among the guide

s I use are The Field Guide to Trees of North America and The Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America - both by the National Wildlife Federation. I also use the Peterson Guides - Guide to Edible Wild Plants and Guide to Medicinal Plants. You can find Peterson Guide

s specific to your region of the country. I also have the Department of the Army Guide to Edible Wild Plants, but I find it a little too generic in its descriptions, and it also has a lot of plants that are not found in North America. I do not recommend it as a reliable everyday reference.

It probably goes without saying, but you should also be sure to get a field guide that's specific to where you live. It

's no good for me, living in East Tennessee, to have a field guide for the north central plains region because the plants common to that area aren't the same as the ones growing where I live.

I do not recommend relying solely on what you find on the Internet about wild plants. There is a lot of misinformation online

. Please, double and triple check information you see online

.

2. FIELD RESEARCH. Get out in the field and start looking at plants. The ideal way would be to go with someone who is very knowledgeable about the plants in the area - a naturalist, forester, conservationalist, or county extension agent would be a good starting resource. If there is a park or nature area near you, be sure to participate in any wildflow

er walks or native plant introductions they might be conducting. Be sure you take notice of what can be found in each kind of environment. Carry notebooks and a camera with you and ask lots of questions.

If you don't have the luxury of a personal guide to introduce you to plants, I would recommend this next approach. Focus on one plant at a time. As you venture outside, find one plant that looks interesting to you. Photograph it, sketch it, take note of its characteristics - leaf structure, flower type, where it grows. Then hit your reference guides. Find something that matches your descriptions. Check it against another guide and then another. Check it again online (tr

y your state's department of environment and conservation, or the USDA plants database on their website). Go take another look at the plant with your field guides in hand and see if it's a match.

Once you've positively identified a plant, take a look at it again in different seasons. Note what the first sprouts look like in spring, what it looks like in flower, and again when it's bearing fruit or seed.

3. MORE HOMEWORK. Check your field guides again to make sure that the plant you're interested in isn't poisonous. Any field guide that is worth having should mention whether or not a plant is poisonous or may cause contact dermatitis. Check additional references about the medicinal value of a plant. One of my favorites is The Green Pharmacy by James A. Duke, PhD. Dr. Duke is also one of the authors of the Peterson Guide to Medicinal Plants that I have.

Be sure that the plant in question is something that you'd actually use and that would be worthwhile to collect. It may be a novelty to go out and collect staghorn sumac berries to make yourself some sumac lemonade, but having to go to all that trouble just to make one pitcher of something to drink as opposed to opening up the fridge to grab a bottle of lemon juice may cause you to think twice about it.

4. DON'T FORGET THE LEGAL STUFF. Check your state laws concerning gathering wild plants. Don't trespass on someone else's property. If you're on public lands, be sure you're not breaking any laws. Many places have laws against picking wildflowers or collecting wild plants on public lands. If you're in a state or national park, don't touch anything. Harvesting plants such as ginseng in the Smoky Mountains National Park, for instance, carries some stiff penalties. Don't try to harvest endangered or threatened species, no matter what the cost or how high the benefit.

5. BE SAFE. If you're going out into the wilderness, try not go to alone. Let others know of your whereabouts, where you're going and when you expect to return. Carry whatever preparedness/safety pack you need for your trek. If you'll be out in the woods and the weeds, wear protective clothing a

gainst bugs and snakes.

6. BE ETHICAL. Don't harvest all of a plant. Take only what you need and leave the rest. Be sure to leave enough for that plant population to survive. Don't leave a mess if you have to dig roots. Cover your tracks. Do your best to leave no trace. If you need bark, limit your harvest to downed trees and limbs, or outer branches that can be removed without major damage to the tree. Do not remove bark from the main trunk of a tree and risk killing it.

7. KEEP A RECORD OF YOUR FINDS. Start a field notebook of the plants you find, where you find them, when they are in bloom and when they bear fruit or seed. Note when you harvested them and what you used them for. Keep a record of how well the remedy worked for you. If you preserved the plant in some way (drying, freezing, making it into an ointment or other preparation), write down what you did and whether or not it was successful. In future seasons you can refer back to your notes and make your next hunting adventures that much more productive.

Hunting herbs isn't a "plug and play" operation by any means. It takes a lot of preparation and forethought. It takes patience and a lot of trial and error. It can be fun. It can also be frustrating. I've endured a lot of headaches, exhaustion, bug bites, and strains from my hunts. But the trouble is worth it to me.