This massive work, long anticipated by ethnobiologists and anthropologists, is striking. A quarter century in development, it considers 44,691 uses for 4,029 plants he discusses. Its pages are brimming with the most complete explication of Native Americans and their interactions with plants ever undertaken - and, thankfully, completed. Half of the uses listed are medicinal, but Moerman also considers foods, fibers, fertilizers and fuels. Not left are plants used as incence, insecticides, instruments, soap, snuff and for smoking. The list goes on. Moerman shares his personal history about how this work came together and provides tabular information probably impossible to find anywhere else - nothing to date has been so thorough and systematic. Most regretably, however, there is not a single illustration in the entire book.

- Excerpted from American Scientist, Vol. 87, March-April 1999