Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West

I'm an amateur, but an experienced amateur. My father is a botanist, and my nextdoor neighbor grandma raised a family during the Great Depression using local wild plants for food. So I grew up a fair hand at recognizing plants in my native midwest, especially food plants. But medicinal plants....Fifteen years ago, my wife & I moved to a cabin on Pikes Peak bordering a vast national forest, and I started to learn the local plants using not Grandma, but guidebooks. Gradually, I became knowledgeable, especially about wildflowers & food plants. Then someone introduced me to locally gathered mullein (or velvet dock), and I ended my struggles with antihistamines. That put me on the lookout: there's good meds in them thar hills!If you buy only one book on medicinal plants of the Rockies, this is the book. (I know only the 2nd edition.) Moore has clearly collected, prepared & prescribed these herbs. It's readable (and I am NOT a botanist), even enjoyable -- I find myself skimming around just for the fun of it. I've checked out several books on Rocky Mountain medicinal plants, and this one beats the others for completeness and comprehensiveness. It gives solid descriptions of the plants' types of environment & geographic locations. In general and for each plant, it gives good descriptions of how & when to collect, how to prepare and how to use & not use. (These plants can be VERY potent, and they sometimes have dangerous look-alikes.) Moore discusses the various subspecies -- which are best, which are common, which are endangered, where they're found. I've used Moore and found him quite helpful in the central Rockies, on the western slopes and down into northern New Mexico. I suspect he's good in the northern Rockies, as he mentions these regularly and they're on his maps for each species.So if you only buy one book, buy this one.But #1: The pictures are clear, but black & white. For me, I can have trouble going from them to real-live plants in color. In the field, I usually carry a couple of guidebooks with pictures or drawings in color, for example,  Plants of the Rocky Mountains  and  Guide to Colorado Wildflowers: Mountains (Guide to Colorado Wildflowers. Vol 2. Mountains) . You probably want to check amazon, maybe local National Park, Monument, Forest professionals for the best local books.But #2: Herbal medicine comes from many, many traditions collected by many, many investigators from many, many sources. With so many "local" plants coming from Europe & Asia, these traditions are truly world-wide. Additionally, there's a growing scientific literature on what's effective. All this information is widely scattered. For example, Moore doesn't include goldenrod. But I found it in  Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies  (see my review), dried some, and it stopped a couple of colds dead, when nothing else helped. While Moore mentions research data, a book like  Prescription for Herbal Healing: An Easy-to-Use A-Z Reference to Hundreds of Common Disorders and Their Herbal Remedies  mentions more, and includes many plants found in the Rockies.But #3: No book is entirely comprehensive in the sense of safety. For example, Moore has a great entry on chokecherry (wild cherry bark). Chokecherry bushes & trees have various cyanide compounds. Moore states that these are safe, even for children. I collected some local bark and tried it. Like Moore said, it smelled wounderful, tasted wonderful, felt wonderful in my throat -- WAY beyond anything I've ever had from my local herb stores. And it REALLY didn't do well in my tummy. As always with a first use, I tried only a little. So I checked around and found in, among other places, the Kerry book mentioned above, that only COMPLETE drying or VERY LENGTHY boiling (esp. at high altitudes) destroys the cyanide.So various rules of thumb include: Don't buy one book, check out many. Find people who are knowledgeable. Go slow & be careful. Use common sense. If something doesn't seem right, don't do it. OF COURSE: check with a doctor for any medical condition that even MIGHT be serious. Take all cautions seriously. Stuff like that.But I've also found good meds in my mountains.An aside: Moore mentions food use, but this isn't the book for that. Locally, I prefer  Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies  and  Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains .

I have several books about medicinal plants. I use this one occasionally.

Good good good

Knew the author, and used other and this field guide book until it was just too too used up and water stained and I gifted away that old one, and bought this one. So useful if you live or are traveling to the mountain southwest and going out and about. Also if you live in the range of Rocky mountains and want to use or know or like us girls picking flowers for a wedding and our hands went numb in different place, and I could look up and find since I kept this book in my car trunk, that it was stinging nettles and the numbness would go away in a few hours, and it did.... Whew! Hands on useful.

This book provides more detail than other medicinal herb books. There is a good discussion of the plant, its appearance, uses, collection times and contarindications. There is also a good discussion of how to make the tinctures, teas, salves, etc. Dosages are also included. I particularly like the medicinal history of the plant through the ages. Different cultures used the plant for different things and I find this helpful. Best value for money spent.

Best book I own about Medicinal Plants. Michael Moore was an expert and these books are filled with insightful and helpful information to learn to identify, use and become a wildcrafter in the Mountain West Area.

This book is a big help for my family and our desire to maintain health in a natural and safe way, without the use of chemicals. It's one of three of my GO-TO books. (the other two being Moore's Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West and Kane's Herbal Medicine of the American Southwest). Easy to read.Lacking color photos showing the plants, which is often a big help.

This is a good descriptive book with black and white drawings and one section of around 50 color pics. It should come in handy in the Colorado Rockies. It's always a good idea to get a couple books like these on the same topic by different authors, or search the internet, to cross-reference and double and triple check to make sure that you've properly identified each species.