Tree and Shrub Notebook Collection: Folklore, Food, and Medicine

Most of us can name 20 brands without thinking. Some of us can't name the tree outside our own front door, let alone what it was once used for.

That wasn't always true. For most of human history, every hedge, every roadside oak, every scrubby patch of woodland carried a name, a use, a warning, a story.

People knew which berries fed you and which ones could kill you. Which bark eased a fever. Which tree you simply didn't cut down without asking first.

That relationship took centuries to build. It's taken less than three generations to nearly lose it.

Robin Harford is an ethnobotanical researcher and wild food educator who has spent more than two decades trying to recover exactly this kind of knowledge before it disappears for good.

For years he worked through old herbals, regional folklore collections and plant-lore studies most people have never heard of.

The result is this collection of fifteen notebooks, one for each of Britain's most significant trees and shrubs.

In them you'll discover:

• The old beliefs and rituals once wrapped around these trees, and what was really behind them
• Which parts were eaten, and how
• Their traditional and modern medicinal uses, alongside safety notes you need to be aware of
• How to identify each tree with a proper botanical profile and colour photographs
• The other, quieter uses of them — for dye, for timber, for craft

This isn't really a book about foraging. It's about the difference between walking past a tree and knowing it. Between a landscape that's just scenery, and one that means something again.

You can't get your forebears relationship with the land back exactly as it was. But you can pick it back up and pass it on to your children and grandchildren.

What people say

"I’m loving all the notebooks! Great quality images and fascinating histories of medicine, folklore, cookery." - Angela Goddard

"The scope, scholarship, references and wonderful photographs make these notebooks a brilliant resource and a source of constant pleasure. Thank you." - Lynne Friedli
  
"I've often heard people say they wish they could download Robin's brain and I think this is the closest we're going to get! The notebooks don't disappoint and are a real blessing." - Adam Reeve
  
"I have just started reading your wonderful notebooks. I have a small amount of knowledge and find your extensive writings absolutely absorbing." - Mandy Conway

Which trees and shrubs are covered?

Ash · Beech · Crab Apple · Elder · Hawthorn · Hazel · Lime · Oak · Pine · Rosehip · Rowan · Sea Buckthorn · Sloe · Strawberry Tree · Wild Service Tree

About the author

Robin Harford is an ethnobotanical researcher and wild food educator whose work explores the relationship between people and plants.

He founded his foraging school in 2008, and his courses have been recognised by BBC Countryfile as among the finest in the UK. He is the creator of Eatweeds, a resource on wild food and ethnobotany recommended by Michelin-starred chef Richard Corrigan for inclusion in The Times Top 50 Food and Drink Websites.

For more than two decades, Harford has travelled across Africa, India, South-East Asia, Europe and the United States, documenting the traditional uses of wild edible and medicinal plants. His work has been featured by BBC Good Food, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph.

He is a member of the Society for Ethnobotany, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, the Herb Society and the Association of Foragers.

Price

£24.95