Radical Botany

Radical Botany the book, will be published as both a downloadable e-book and as a hard copy.  The book will include valuable illustrations of the most important native plants of the Cascadian bioregion.  Readers will learn to identify plants, find them in their native habitat and learn the ethnobotanical past of each of the plants.  The book will include the original 14 Radical Botany essays as published over three years on Portland Indymedia as well as new material.

Other subjects that will be covered in the book include the use of plants for utility, medicine, and food.

The hard copy of the book will be published with recycled paper and materials and will include several pages of paper made from fast growing renewable plant fibers.

The book will include maps of where to find these important plants and how to bring them back into the cities, towns, and rural areas of Cascadian.

Most of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go develop a Cascadian school of Native plants.  This school which will be located in Cascadia will also support and teach ethnobotany.

Here is a table of contents for the book.  I hope to publish it in 2012- a good year for transformation!

TABLE OF CONTENTS – Radical Botany – Reconnecting native plant and humans by Ellen O’Shea

20 illustrated chapters including introduction, glossary and Index

•  Introduction: finding our way back, reconnecting with the wild plant world
•  Chapter 1. Plant Community, human community (White Oak)
• Chapter 2. Learning the lay of the land (Oregon Grape)
•  Chapter 3. How to identify native plants: Part 1- Different ways of knowing (Kinnikinnick)
• Chapter 4: How to identify native plants: Part 2 – Binomial Nomeclature – renaming the plants (Miner’s lettuce)
• Chapter 5: How to identify native plants: Part 3 – Keying and profiling plants
• Chapter 6. Building shelters from plants (Willow)
• Chapter 7. Plants for clothes, shoes and utility: Grasses, sedges, tules and fiber plants (Cat-tail)
• Chapter 8. Wild seed – wild plants. What is valuable?
•  Chapter 9. The great harvest – foraging through the seasons (Stinging Nettle)
• Chapter 10. Digging in the dirt- exploring earthworms and mycelium (Wapato)
•  Chapter 11. Using native plants as medicine (Pacific Ninebark)
• Chapter 12. Stalking the wild plant – Tools, geography, maps (Horsetail)
• Chapter 13. Fermenting the bounty (Red and Blue Elderberry)
• Chapter 14. What is a native plant and why do we need them?  (Western red cedar)
• Chapter 15. One hundred and sixty-five important native plants you need to know.
•  Chapter 16. Place where the spirit dwells- place where the sacred plants grow in Cascadia. A tour of sacred groves in the Cascadian-bioregion.
• Chapter 17. Generational Injustice (Ferns)
• Chapter 18.  Resources and Tools: books, gear, online resources.
• Chapter 19 – Glossary
• Index