Plants for Arid Lands

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Background

   1. The needs of the people

      • Mary Cherry

      Pages 1-8

   2. The arid environment

      • A. T. Grove

      Pages 9-18

3. Food

   1. Wild desert relatives of crops: their direct uses as food

      • Gary P. Nabhan, Richard S. Felger

      Pages 19-33

   2. Crops for arid lands

      • J. M. Wilson, J. R. Witcombe

      Pages 35-52

   3. The nutritional composition of Australian Aboriginal food plants of the desert regions

      • J. C. Brand, V. Cherikoff

      Pages 53-68

   4. Khoisan food plants: taxa with potential for future economic exploitation

      • T. H. Arnold, M. J. Wells, A. S. Wehmeyer

      Pages 69-86

   5. Food plants of prehistoric and predynastic Egypt

      • M. Nabil El Hadidi

      Pages 87-92

4. Timber, Fuel and Forage

   1. Place and role of trees and shrubs in dry areas

      • B. Ben Salem, Christel Palmberg

      Pages 93-102

   2. Prosopis tamarugo in the Chilean Atacama — ecophysiological and reforestation aspects

      • H. Stienen

      Pages 103-116

   3. Forage and fuel plants in the arid zone of North Africa, the Near and Middle East

      • H. N. Le Houérou

      Pages 117-141

   4. Forage and browse — the northern Australian experience

      • J. J. Mott, R. Reid

      Pages 143-161

   5. Bees and honey in the exploitation of arid land resources

      • Eva Crane

      Pages 163-175

5. Plants for the Environment

   1. Economic halophytes — a global review

      • James Aronson

      Pages 177-188

   2. Present and potential economic usages of palms in arid and semi-arid areas

      • Dennis V. Johnson

      Pages 189-202

   3. Plants for conservation of soil and water in arid ecosystems

      • H. L. Morton

      Pages 203-214

   4. Nitrogen fixation in arid environments

      • J. I. Sprent

      Pages 215-229

6. National Studies

   1. The potential for the commercial utilisation of indigenous plants in Botswana

      • Frank W. Taylor

      Pages 231-242

   2. Ecodevelopment of arid lands in India with non-agricultural economic plants — a holistic approach

      • T. N. Khoshoo, G. V. Subrahmanyam

      Pages 243-265

   3. Some indigenous economic plants of the Sultanate of Oman

      • R. M. Lawton

      Pages 267-275

Economic plants have been defined by SEPASAT as those plants that are utilised either directly or indirectly for the benefit of Man. Indirect usage includes the needs of Man's livestock and the maintenance of the environment; the benefits may be domestic, commercial or aesthetic. Economic plants constitute a large and so far uncalculated percentage of the quarter of a million higher plants in the World today. However, it has been calculated that 10% (25 000) of these species are now on the verge of extinction and extinction means that a genetic resource that could be of benefit to Man will be lost for ever. Furthermore, for every species lost an estimated 10-30 other dependent organisms are also doomed. Fewer than 1 per cent of the World's plants have been sufficiently well studied for a true evaluation of the potential floral wealth awaiting discovery, not only in the rain forests, which man is now actively destroying at a rate of 20 ha a minute, but also in the very much neglected dry areas of the World.

• agriculture
• desert
• development
• ecosystem
• energy
• flora
• nitrogen
• nutrition
• plant
• plants
• soil
• water
• Systematic Botany

• SEPASAT, Royal Botanic Gardens, Richmond, Surrey, UK

  G. E. Wickens

• ICASALS and Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA

  J. R. Goodin

• Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Richmond, Surrey, UK

  D. V. Field

Policies and ethics