Foraging and Bushcrafting books that aren't AI garbage

[Anianna]

Too many how-to books these days are just AI garbage.  Foraging and bushcrafting books written by AI are potentially dangerous.  Share your trusted resources here so we can all have access to information that won't potentially kill us!



Go Forth and Forage
by Whitney Johnson
The author is a real person living in the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky and is known on social media as the Appalachian Forager where she shares her foraging forays and recipes.  I've been following her for years and trust her experience with the subject matter. 


All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms
by David Arora
This one has been around since before AI and is a favorite in foraging communities. 


Essential Bushcraft Paperback
by Ray Mears
Frequently recommended in bushcrafting communities. 

[tirls]

I use a flora book on plant identification using dichotomous keys. The advantages are that it encompasses most plants you encounter in Germany and the neighbouring countries and you automatically know if there are plants that are easily mistaken for each other and how to differentiate them. 
I'm using "Schmeil-Fitschen: Flora von Deutschland und angrenzender Länder", you'd need to research which book is used in your area. Simply try to find out what books universities use in their botany courses.

I've added a small magnifier card to it and am underlining the edible parts in green, poisonous in red. Things that are edible but not in large quantities get a squiggly line.
I plan on using yellow for medicinal uses.
It's an ongoing project. I've simply started with the ones I forage most often or find in plant shops and am now using foraging books as a guideline which plants to research next. The rest I'll do in alphabetical order.

For a lot of foraging books I found that they sometimes have a footnote that goes along the lines of "beware, if the flower has a teeny tiny black dot in the middle it's a different, deadly poisonous plant". Which would be great if the plant is flowering at the moment. 
They also don't always mention if a plant can be eaten but is harmful in larger quantities and are very limited in the plants mentioned. The one I use can identify over 4500 plants in a 17x11,5x4cm book.

[Lodewijk]

It should go without saying, but:

Bushcraft by Mors Kochanski.

Much of BushcraftUSA's BushClass is derived from it in one way or another. A foundational text in many ways.