Guides: Biological Sciences: Ethnobotany

Chumash Indian Museum: Our Ethnobotany Gardens

Ethnobotany Books

Books on Ethnobotany of California

To find more books on the ethnobotany of California, click on this link to be redirected to the library's OneSearch: ethnobotany AND california

Feel like browsing the stacks?

Ethnobotany books are spread out on different floors of the library due to the interdisciplinary nature of ethnobotany. You will find books in the Botany section (subclass QK on 3rd floor), History of the Americas (class E on 6th floor) and Anthropology (subclass GN on 6th floor)

Ethnobotany of the California Indians by Beatrice M. Beck
Call Number: E78.C15 E83 1994

ISBN: 9781878762504

Publication Date: 1994-01-01
The ethnobotany of the California Indians : a compendium of the plants, their users, and their uses by George R Mead
Call Number: E78.C15 M4

Publication Date: 1972
Chumash Ethnobotany by Jan Timbrook; Chris Chapman (Illustrator)
Call Number: E99.C815 T56 2007

ISBN: 9781597140485

Publication Date: 2007-04-01

The Chumash people have lived in coastal California from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara for thousands of years. Their homeland is an area of uncommon biological richness and diversity, featuring over 1,500 species of plants. Their traditional foods, medicine, raw materials for making clothing, all kinds of tools and utensils, religious paraphernalia, and other items essential to existence were derived from the natural world; in one way or another, everything the Chumash people made involved plants. This painstakingly researched and scrupulously documented book, intended for the layperson interested in gaining a deeper understanding of a significant California Indian culture, reveals a landscape seen daily by thousands of people but understood by very few.