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Introduction

I’m very happy to be writing this new introduction to Some Useful Wild Plants, which was first published over 45 years ago, in 1971!

When I came out to British Columbia after graduating from McGill University in 1967, one of my first new friends was David Manning. (We’re still great buddies nearly 50 years later!) Even though my degree was in psychology and anthropology, I had a love for plants in my blood and bones. David stoked my desire to learn more about plants because of his great familiarity with all things that grew in the wild.

There weren’t many books on foraging for wild plants back then, and we got the idea to write a really good, all-inclusive one. With support and encouragement from Tom Perry, Nancy Cundill and Gregg Macdonald, I ended up being the main researcher and writer. I interviewed First Nations herbalists and Doukhobor wild-crafters, spent lots of time in libraries and trekked all over southern BC, eventually finding all the plants I was looking for.

We convinced our good friend Bob Inwood to do the illustrations, and I still have fond memories of taking Bob into forest and field to capture the plants with his beautiful line drawings. I am grateful to Bob for allowing a new generation of plant lovers to see his fine renditions.

At that time, we were based in the Slocan Valley in the BC Interior and the first edition of Some Useful Wild Plants focused on plants that were found there. When David and I took our manuscript to David Robinson of Talonbooks in Vancouver, he was immediately very enthusiastic. Before long, I was taking copies to bookstores across southern BC.

There was such a great demand for our book that we soon created an expanded version that was relevant to all of British Columbia. In fact, most of the wild plants in this book are found across North America. Some Useful Wild Plants became a best-seller that was reprinted six times. I saw copies everywhere I went. I felt so gratified that I had helped initiate a revival in the appreciation and utilization of wild plants that could be found in city and country, field and forest, garden and farm.

Many glossy books on edible and medicinal wild plants have come out since then, but I still delight in Bob’s illustrations and feel good about what I wrote 45 years ago.

My love affair with plants has not diminished all these years later. When I moved to Salt Spring Island on the BC coast in 1976, I started to grow foods and herbs a lot more than picking them in the wild. My gardens got larger and larger, and by 1986 I was managing my own seed company, Salt Spring Seeds. I now maintain over 700 plant varieties and ship seeds all over the world. You can find seeds for many of the plants in Some Useful Wild Plants in my catalogue at saltspringseeds.com, including alfalfa, burdock, clover, goldenrod, miner’s lettuce, nettles, nodding onion, plantain, purslane, St. John’s wort, valerian and yarrow!

Whether in the wild or in your own garden, the plants in this book have so much to offer in terms of nutrition, medicine, self-empowerment and beauty. Happy foraging and happy growing!

Dan Jason