Best resource to learn to ID plants? I want to be able to harvest plants like I'm in an RPG.
Best resource to learn to ID plants? I want to be able to harvest plants like I'm in an RPG.
Best resource to learn to ID plants? I want to be able to harvest plants like I'm in an RPG.
Books. Take the books out with you. Supposedly there are paid apps that can do it quite accurately now but I haven't tried them yet.
The apps are pretty useful and let you just take a picture of the leaves, but books and definitely online resources for identifying plants or learning about local fauna and wildlife are useful. You can harvest a ton of nuts, berries, edible fungi, medicinal herbs, normal herbs like mint, if you know what you are doing.
Between hunting, fishing, gardening, and gathering, you can source a balanced diet from nature yourself. This is how a lot of rednecks and frontier homesteaders survived, and how Indigenous people lived without money. There is a great abundance out in nature if your are knowledgeable and respectful, not taking more than you need so it grows back.
>if you* are knowledgeable and respectful,
Would start with learning about the local wildlife, to see what you can gather, then learning how to find and identify said plants.
If you are especially bold, you can even plant your own seeds and plants out in nature. As long as it is well suited to the soil and environment. This is called guerilla gardening.
I generally tell people to learn trees and shrubs first. Gathering is largely reliant on knowing what grows around what kind of tree.
Good goy
Boy you cant even call the shit we have today an abundance let alone a great one
It depends on where you live. You know 97% of the US is rural land, but how many people have survival skills and could fish/hunt/gather to survive off the abundance of the wilderness? Many are hopelessly dependent on grocery stores, money, and the entire industrial system in a survival situation, hence looting and rioting. Out innawoods, I can fill a freezer with meat overnight with a trotline and a milk jug. My blueberries are coming in nicely as well, will have a large harvest this year.
When there were 50k people on the whole of the earth, there was abundance
If you truly believe this then why not have a nice day? The world would be better off without you according to your own reasoning.
Actually, by his reasoning, he should be killing you.
Nature was the one that almost wiped out humanity multiple times.
My bet is solar cycles and macronova but it is also possible earths axis of rotation has moved in the past--that would also cause global devastation (even floods).
The apps are awful if you're trying to learn how to do it. The reason to use field guides is because the good ones explain what to look for and lookalikes. You have to get used to looking at plant details and actually like doing it. The apps are fine for normies but if you actually are trying to get good at plant identification doing it is the only way to get good. You're literally training your eyes how to look at things--you cant do that with an app.
The apps are good if you find a plant and have no idea what it is. But they're not good if you're actively trying to learn how to identify plants, since they don't actually tell you what you should be looking for.
Okay, so what if I don't want to learn? What is the best app for plant and fungus identification?
I've used the picturethis app with good success. it's the only one I've ever used so I can't say if it's the best one out there. But it did help me distinguish trout lillies from wild leeks a couple days ago.
>harvest plants like I'm in an RPG.
gay reason, but go to your local state park and ask if they have any books on wildlife/plantlife in your region. you can also get a phone app like inaturalist which is sponsored by national geographic and just upload pictures, but it also sends all your info to the government
If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
1. Rub a bit of the plant on your arm crook,
2. wait several hours, if nothing happens,
3. bite a little bit, hold it a little bit, then swallow,
4. see 2.)
5. take bigger bites
>Nom nom nom
Absolutely horrible advice. This is only parroted by "survivalists" and never by actual foragers. Just get a book or go online, find a few plants that are in season and seem interesting, then go find them (use inaturalist to cheat) and repeat. Each plant you learn is another word in a language you are trying to learn.
>This is only parroted by "survivalists" and never by actual foragers
this lmao
>all the larpers in this thread talking about things they've never done
>meanwhile the actual foraging thread is full of foraging oc
lmao the absolute state of nu-/out/
there is no such thing as new/out
you're an idiot
>t. nu-/out/ist
>t. idiot
noted
Pottery
The reason you do those tests is to see if you have an allergic reaction, which the internet won't be able to help you with. Idiot.
Youtube videos
You need to go all in. At least one book LOCAL TO YOUR AREA specifically. Inaturalist app. then you need a second opinion. Plant identification groups on social media. Good luck:
wildflowersearch.org is a great tool for recognizing things growing near you. You can either look at the search results first and then go out and look for the plants or you can browse around outside first then come back to the site to confirm what you saw. It works well in both directions.
Seek is an app that's basically a Pokedex in real life
They say Seek is for children. Are you a child?
Do any identification apps work offline if you are in the backcountry?
lol no
It's image recognition and it goes through a massive catalog of comparisons. Plant ID apps are also total shit. Two identical plants in two different environments can yield massively different physical characteristics... even a difference of a few months in a season can change the appearance of a plant.
Anyone have any book recommendations in this regard specific to western PA/central Appalachia?
>The Plants of Pennsylvania: An Illustrated Manual
I'd check this out from the library first to see if you like it. If they don't have it I'm sure they can get it on inter library loan. I'd also check out what the library has as well on the subject.
>apps
Why are you foraging in a place that has cell phone service? Are you homeless eating dandelions at the local park?
Local big park is planning on installing *another* cell tower to extend service for search and rescue. As well we've already been dealing with the expansion of satellite based internet service for some time.
Everything west of the rockies has cell coverage my dude.
Now I don't know about that.
Why would you lie on the internet, the blank areas don't have coverage. Even in the mountains right next to Los Angeles there are some places without any signal.
I was drunk and that was a typo
I meant to say east of the Rockies
No
I drove from Waco to Big Bend last week. Probably 75% of the drive had cell coverage and only 10% of the park.
That's because you have a shit carrier--not because there isn't coverage.
Damn, Idaho looks like the place to be. I visited a town there once, I think it was called Bridgepoint or something like that in the northern part, and it was beautiful. Very nice people, very cozy, tons of PrepHole shit anywhere you go.
I need you to never speak of this again and to delete this post.
I've had great success with facebook groups for foragers.