Andy MacKinnon and co-authors2009A Canadian field guide
A guide to the wild plants that have fed and healed people across Canada, and to the ones that look like them and can kill.
By Andy MacKinnon, Linda Kershaw, and John Thor Arnason, with Patrick Owen, Amanda Karst and Fiona Hamersley Chambers. Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton.
This page is about a book and how to look at plants. It is not a foraging guide, and nothing on it tells you a plant is safe.
If someone may have eaten a poisonous plant, call your poison centre or your local emergency number right away. Don't wait for symptoms.
The core idea
Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada is a Lone Pine field guide by forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, botanist and writer Linda Kershaw and University of Ottawa biologist John Thor Arnason, who studies the chemistry of medicinal plants, with Patrick Owen, Amanda Karst and Fiona Hamersley Chambers. It describes wild plants found across Canada that people have used for food and medicine, and records how First Nations peoples and European settlers used them, including for clothing, shelter and dye. The plants are grouped by growth form, from trees and shrubs to vines, herbs, grasses and ferns, and arranged by family within each group, with a picture guide at the front for finding a plant by its leaves or flowers. Each entry gives common and scientific names, a description for identification, food, medicinal and other uses, and warnings where they apply. A separate section covers poisonous plants, and cautions about allergies, poisons and look-alikes run through the whole book.
What makes it more than a list of plants is the order it asks you to think in. First the shape: is it a tree, a shrub, a vine, a herb, a grass or a fern? Then the family, then the species, with its scientific name. Uses come after that, and warnings sit right beside them.
Read that way, the book is a record of what people have known about the land, much of it First Nations knowledge, and a reminder of how much a careless reader could get wrong.
Inside each group, the plants are arranged by family. The icons and colours are ours.
i.
Common and scientific names, the growth form and a description for telling it apart. Identification always comes first.
ii.
How First Nations peoples and settlers used it for food, for healing, and for clothing, shelter and dye.
iii.
Allergies, poisons, look-alikes and plants that need preparing, plus how rare the plant is, so picking is never automatic.
Interactive · the field log
Log what you see on a walk: its shape, its stage, where it grows. Watch the months fill in. The log never names a plant for you and never says what is safe. A name goes in only when an expert has given it.
Something to notice
Stand back first. Is it a tree, a shrub, a vine, a herb, a grass or a fern?
Keep your hands off plants you don't know. The sap of some burns skin in sunlight.
Your year of noticing
No entries yet.
Nothing logged yet. Take a short walk, pick one plant, and fill in the entry without touching it.
This log does not identify plants or tell you what is safe to eat, and it is no substitute for an expert or for medical care. HourLife's tool, not the authors'. Entries stay in this browser.
Concept anatomy
Every species in the guide follows the same pattern. HourLife's sketch of it, around a made-up plant:
The guide's order takes you from a whole landscape to one species. HourLife's reading of it adds the gate at the end.
Step 1
Tree, shrub, vine, herb, grass or fern.
Step 2
The group of relatives inside that form.
Step 3
One entry, one scientific name.
Step 4
Which dangerous plants could this be instead?
The gate
In person, with the plant. Only then is it an identification.
Community insights
Nº 01HourLife takeaway
Every entry pairs its uses with a description for telling the plant apart, and warnings where they apply. The food notes are a record of what people did, not an invitation to try it. Readers and reviewers make the same point: treat the book as the start of your research, and get a positive identification from someone who knows before anything goes in your mouth.
Nº 02HourLife takeaway
The guide gives poisonous plants a section of their own and flags look-alikes in the entries. The carrot family is the classic trap in North America: it holds familiar food plants and also water hemlock, one of the most poisonous plants on the continent. A near match is not a match.
Nº 03HourLife takeaway
The book notes where a plant had to be prepared to remove a toxin, and a description cannot show every stage of a plant's life. A root, a leaf and a berry from the same plant can differ, and so can a young shoot and an old one. That is one more reason a general guide cannot stand in for an expert beside you.
Nº 04HourLife takeaway
The guide is arranged by growth form: trees, shrubs, vines, herbs, grasses and their kin, and ferns. Sorting what you see into one of those groups is the first honest step in noticing a plant. It narrows the question without pretending to answer it.
Nº 05HourLife takeaway
Each entry carries both, and the index lists both. One common name can cover different plants in different provinces, and one plant can have several common names. When you ask an expert or check a second source, the scientific name keeps you both talking about the same thing.
Nº 06HourLife takeaway
The entries describe how First Nations peoples used plants for food, healing and daily life, alongside the uses European settlers brought or learned. Reading it is a reminder that this knowledge has owners and teachers. The best way to learn more is often from the communities who hold it, on their terms.
Nº 07HourLife takeaway
The book describes how plants were used as medicine, which is not the same as showing that they work or are safe. Plants that act on the body can also harm it, and some interact with medicines. If a plant interests you for your health, take the question to a doctor or pharmacist.
Nº 08HourLife takeaway
Beside food and medicine, each entry has room for other uses. Those notes widen the picture of how people lived with the land. They also give you something to notice on a walk that needs no picking at all.
Nº 09HourLife takeaway
The guide notes each species' conservation status. Even a plant you could pick safely may be scarce where you are standing. Looking, sketching and photographing leave the plant for the next person and the next season.
Action steps
Look up the poison centre for your province or territory and save it in your phone today. If anyone may have eaten an unknown plant, call it or your local emergency number at once.
Look for a naturalist club, a botanical garden, a university herbarium or an Indigenous-led plant walk near you. Book one guided walk this month and go with questions, not a basket.
Before you study a single edible plant, read about the poisonous plants of your region. Pick the three most dangerous ones near you and learn what they look like through the year.
Use a small notebook or the field log on this page. For each plant, note the date, the place, the growth form and what you saw, and leave the name blank until someone who knows confirms it.
On your street or in a park, pick ten plants and put each into one group: tree, shrub, vine, herb, grass or sedge, or fern. Don't name them. Just practise seeing their shape.
Choose one short walk and repeat it once a month for a year. Log what is budding, flowering, fruiting or dying back, and watch the same plants change.
Keep your hands off plants you don't know: the sap of some burns skin in sunlight. Photograph the whole plant, the leaves, any flowers or fruit, and where it grows.
After each walk, write down one thing you could not work out. Take it to a club, a guided walk or a herbarium and write down the answer in your log.
Pick one family and learn the features its members share, with its scientific name. Note which members are dangerous, so a family resemblance never reads as permission.
Learn the plant long before you learn the recipe, and let an expert have the last word.HourLife note after Andy MacKinnon
Never eat a wild plant without a positive identification from an expert. Medicinal uses are traditional, not medical advice. In an emergency, call your poison centre or local emergency number.
Pick setup actions and daily habits from Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada, choose a start date, and download a printable checklist with real calendar pages.
Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada is a Lone Pine field guide by forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, botanist and writer Linda Kershaw and University of Ottawa biologist John Thor Arnason, who studies the chemistry of medicinal plants, with Patrick Owen, Amanda Karst and Fiona Hamersley Chambers. It describes wild plants found across Canada that people have used for food and medicine, and records how First Nations...
HourLife’s key takeaways include: In a field guide like this one, identification comes before any recipe. Many plants worth knowing have a look-alike that can kill you. Whether a plant is food can depend on the part, the season and the preparation.
It's a strong pick for readers exploring History Worth Knowing and Learning & Mastery. HourLife distills its core idea into key insights and practical actions worth trying.
Save your poison centre number — Look up the poison centre for your province or territory and save it in your phone today. If anyone may have eaten an unknown plant, call it or your local emergency number at once.
About five minutes. The HourLife summary distills Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada into its core idea, 9 community insights, and 9 practical actions you can apply right away.
One idea from one book and one small habit from another, every week or once a month, on the day and around the hour you pick, where you are. Nothing else, and one link stops it.
Print it, pin it, post it. Ways to take Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada off the screen and into the world.
The core idea, key takeaways, and how to apply Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada, as one clean, readable page.
Read summaryEvery action from this page as a printable to-do list, with a 7-day tracker.
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Save the insights that land, build the habits that stick, and keep what you learn from Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada working long after you close the page — inside HourLife.
