Table of Contents

Background.- 1. The needs of the people.- 2. The arid environment.- Food.- 3. Wild desert relatives of crops: their direct uses as food.- 4. Crops for arid lands.- 5. The nutritional composition of Australian Aboriginal food plants of the desert regions.- 6. Khoisan Food plants: taxa with potential for future economic exploitation.- 7. Food plants of prehistoric and predynastic Egypt.- Timber, Fuel and Forage.- 8. Place and role of trees and shrubs in dry areas.- 9. Prosopis tamarugo in the Chilean Atacama — ecophysiological and reforestation aspects.- 10. Forage and fuel plants in the arid zone of North Africa, the Near and Middle East.- 11. Forage and browse — the northern Australian experience.- 12. Bees and honey in the exploitation of arid land resources.- Plants for the Environment.- 13. Economic halophytes — a global review.- 14. Present and potential economic usages of palms in arid and semi-arid areas.- 15. Plants for conservation of soil and water in arid ecosystems.- 16. Nitrogen fixation in arid environments.- National Studies.- 17. The potential for the commercial utilization of indigenous plants in Botswana.- 18. Ecodevelopment of arid lands in India with non-agricultural economic plants — a holistic approach.- 19. Sonic indigenous economic plants of the Sultanate of Oman.- 20. The ecological role of plant resources in the arid regions of China.- 21. Plants of the Australian arid zone — an undeveloped potential.- Work of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.- 22. Wild and semi-cultivated legumes as potential sources of resistance to bruchid beetles for crop breeders: a study of Vigna/Phaseolus.- 23. Seed banks: a useful tool in conservative plant evaluation and exploitation.- 24. The potential for the in vitro preparation of a number of economicallyimportant plants for arid areas.- Biochemicals.- 25. Gums and resins, and factors influencing their economic development.- 26. Resins from Grindelia: a model for renewable resources in arid environments.- 27. Plant hydrocarbon resources in arid and semi-arid lands.- 28. Unconventional arid land plants as biomass feedstocks for energy.- 29. Rubber and phytochemical specialities from desert plants in North America.- Information Services.- 30. Plant information service for economic plants of arid lands.- Taxonomic index.- General index.

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