Mother Earth's Mercantile

Mother Earth’s Mercantile: Plants of the Four Corners Area and Their Uses Through Time, by Elizabeth M. Wheeler. Photographs by Rick Bell.

This unique guidebook describes plants found throughout the Four Corners area of the American Southwest, including in many of the region’s national parks and monuments: Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, Arches, Canyonlands, Chaco Canyon, and Aztec.

Color photographs and life-size silhouettes complement descriptions of individual plants and aid in identification.

Easily recognized symbols are used to highlight accounts of how American Indian groups—past and present—used each plant for food, shelter, and other purposes.

Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, 1994
ISBN 0-9624640-4-X

Available in print only. May be purchased in Crow Canyon’s Gift Shop.

 

Want to learn more about ethnographic plant use?

For a detailed online summary of the ethnographically documented uses of plants found in archaeological sites in the Four Corners area, see our extensive online database, Plant Use by Native Peoples of the American Southwest: Ethnographic Documentation.