Mimi Prunella Hernandez and Heather Wood Buzzard, Authors
After working together on the book National Geographic Herbal, authors and avid wildcrafters Mimi Prunella Hernandez and Heather Wood Buzzard have again collaborated, writing about more than 100 overlooked and underappreciated edibles and their uses in the National Geographic Backyard Guide to Edible Wild Plants.
Hernandez brings her experience as an internationally renowned ethnobotanist and knowledge of how to prepare plants in the kitchen, and Wood Buzzard is a wildcrafting herbalist who has written about herbs as food and medicine for 15 years.
“I get so much joy from introducing people to plants as familiar as daylilies and pine trees and teaching about the incredible nutritional and health benefits of these very accessible underdog herbs,” Wood Buzzard says.
Readers may be surprised to learn about common wild plants they may not have considered eating before. For example, Wood Buzzard notes that stinging nettles and chickweed contain more vitamins and nutrients than store-bought kale. And, adds Hernandez, “You can actually eat the stalks of sunflowers.”
The authors hope the book will help those who feel a pull to reconnect with the natural world. The book “invites a deeper awareness of the terrain that surrounds us, even just beyond our doorsteps,” Hernandez says. “It calls readers back to their roots, encouraging a sense of gratitude for the wisdom of our elders and for the gifts of the wild places that still sustain us.”
National Geographic Backyard Guide to Edible Wild Plants, April 2025, nature guide, paperback, $24.99, by Mimi Hernandez and Heather Wood Buzzard, and published by Nat/Geo Disney, Glendale, CA.
