Popular Economic Botany Or Description Of The Botanical And Commercial Characters Of The Principal Articles Of Vetegable Origin Used For Food Clothing Tanning Dyeing Building Medicine Perfumery Etc

Excerpt from Popular Economic Botany: Or Description of the Botanical and Commercial Characters of the Principal Articles of Vegetable Origin, Used for Food, Clothing, Tanning, Dyeing, Building, Medicine, Perfumery, Etc Vegetable products constitute nine-twelfths of the whole commerce in raw produce which employs the vast mercan tile marine of this great kingdom. They furnish us with the bulk of our food and clothing, our medicine and our building materials, and with many other necessaries and luxuries. It may be argued, that most of the benefits we derive from the vegetable kingdom have been discovered without the aid of science. True, but is not this a great and powerful argument in favour of the application of scientific investigation in this department? For if so much has been done without its aid, how much may we not hope will be effected when the principles of scientific research, which have effected such miracles in every other depart ment, are brought to bear upon that of Economic Botany? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The strength of this book is that it is written by someone who has spent a lifetime devoted to the science of economic botany. The author has brought together his vast experience in the field in Africa with his studies of arid land plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The result is an informative and reliable text that covers a vast range of topics. It is also firmly based upon the author's research and interest in plant taxonomy and therefore fully acknowledges the importance of correct naming and classification in the field of science of economic botany. The coverage is of economic botany in its broadest sense. I was delighted to find such topics as ecophysiology, plant breeding, the environment and conservation are included in the text. This gives the book a much more comprehensive coverage than most other texts on the subject. I was also glad to see that the book covers the use of various organisms that are no longer considered part of the plant kingdom such as various species of fungi and algae. It is indeed a broad ranging book that will be of use to many people interested in the uses of plants and fungi. Economic botany is once again being given more prominence as a discipline because of its enormous relevance to both conservation and sustainable development. Those people involved in those topics shOUld find this a most useful resource.