Books

Finally-a field guide to useful tropical plants

A Field Guide to Medicinal and Use- ful Plants of the Upper Amazon. James Lee Castner, Stephen Lee Timme, and James Alan Duke. Fe- line Press, Gainesville, FL, 1998. 154 pp., illus. $35.00 (ISBN 0-9625150- 7-8 paper).

During recent field work in the for- ests of the lower Amazon, I shared A Field Guide to Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Upper Amazon with both researchers and locals. A recur- ring problem arose: Once the guide left my hands, it was difficult to retrieve. Vibrant color photos of fruits, flowers, leaves, and whole plants made it alluring for rural Amazonians, who appreciated see- ing pictures of many of the plants they use to fashion crafts, roofs, food, and medicine. For their part, ecolo- gists and botanists enjoyed the con- venience of viewing the fruiting and flowering stages of over 100 tropical species without the nuisance of swat- ting mosquitos.

Although the book is entitled Plants of the Upper Amazon, many of the plants described are found throughout Amazonia and the Neotropics, and some are natural- ized throughout tropical regions worldwide. By selecting many plants, not only those native to upper Amazonia but also those native to Africa, Asia, and Mesoamerica, the authors broaden the book's appeal. Travelers, scientists, and armchair enthusiasts can enjoy information on the botany and uses of globally traded plants, such as avocado, ba- nana, passion fruit, and pineapple, while at the same time learning fasci- nating details about other, lesser- known fruit, fiber, and medicinal species found only in Amazonia.

The synergistic team of authors- tropical biologist and photographer James Lee Castner, botanist Stephen Lee Timme, and renowned ethno-

A "backyard weed," purslane (Postulaca oleracea).

botanist James Alan Duke-state as their purpose "to educate and enter- tain in an informative, easy to use, and enjoyable manner...and to fill an unexploited literary niche." As they point out, despite the flurry of popu- lar and scientific interest in rain- forests and medicinal plants, there is a scarcity of easy-to-use photo field guides. Through the use of accessible language and excellent photos, the authors successfully convey a wealth of botanical information to the public. The concise text covers wide ground, including internationally traded foods, such as papaya, vanilla, mango, chocolate, and coffee; plant precursors to modern medicinals, such as curare and coca; tropical medicinals, such as cat's claw; back-

yard "weeds," such as purslane and pokeberry; and scores of lesser known species.

Small and portable for easy use in the field, the book includes, on each page, one to three photos of the featured plant and a two-part text that covers taxonomic description and uses. Origin, distribution, and habitat are included for some but not all of the plants; offering this information for each species would have given readers a clearer appre- ciation of endemic versus widely naturalized species. Plants are or- dered alphabetically by genus, which could be confusing for nonbotanists; however, Latin, Spanish, and com- mon English names are supplied on each page, and three appendices, one

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for each type of name, offer quick means of referencing the text. The text is thoroughly grounded in cur- rent scientific references, which aid in identifying the dedicated research- ers who have devoted much of their lives to documenting the ever-dwin- dling body of knowledge surround- ing plants and their uses.

The botanical descriptions are re- markably fresh and conversational, giving the impression that the au- thors are standing in front of the plant describing it to the reader. Tech- nical language is handled in a user- friendly fashion; each botanical term is preceded with a plainly worded description, such as "parts which pop apart (= explosive dehiscence)" and "bell shaped blossoms (= cam- panulate)." Technical nomenclature is also described pictorally in an il- lustrated introduction to botanical terminology.

The use of common names, a prac- tice that is sometimes irritating to botanists, can be a powerful way to grab the imagination of the public. The book's use of names such as monkey ladder, chewing gum tree, ice cream bean, and panama hat "palm" make unfamiliar plants ac- cessible to nonspecialists, who may be more interested in what a plant does than in what it "is." These colorful names, along with vivid de- scriptions, inform readers of a wide range of fascinating plant uses: Santa Maria (Lepianthes peltata) keeps away ticks and lice; bathing in wild garlic (Ajo sacha) helps to protect against evil, influenza, and fatigue; and dwarf ginger (Mishquipanga enano) is used to divine where ani- mals are in the forest. In addition to describing edible, medicinal, and cultural uses, the book makes occa- sional references to the ecosystem functions of certain plants, such as preventing erosion as living fences or adding nitrogen to soil.

The close-up photos conveniently highlight the distinguishing charac- teristics of each species. The prolif- eration of unusual tropical fruits and voracious insects is evident in im- ages of trees such as the genipap, which has as much leaf area missing as present. Pictures of freshly cut rubber trees, night-blooming cala- bash, starlike fruit of clusia, and vegetable ivory in cross-section cap-

tivate the reader by depicting life stages and species that even tropical biologists may have missed in their travels.

With its concise prose, A Field Guide to Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Upper Amazon does more than serve as a field guide. This small book attests to the ingenuity of Amazonians in developing a wide- ranging pharmacopoeia, to the criti- cal role of tropical plants in the glo- bal economy, and to the promise of plants in our future. After perusing the text, an ecologist with extensive experience in Asia and Amazonia commented, "the world should be full of books like this."

PATRICIA SHANLEY Durrell Institute of

Conservation and Ecology The University of Kent

Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NJ United Kingdom

THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF WHEAT

Geopolitics and the Green Revolu- tion: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War. John H. Perkins. Oxford Uni- versity Press, New York, 1997. 337 pp., illus. $60.00 (ISBN 0-19- 511013-7 cloth).

The discipline of political ecology seeks to link the two theoretical con- cepts of political economy and eco- logical analysis. As a scientific out- sider to this social science, I see its strengths to lie in its multidisciplinary nature and its dependency on actual events. Geopolitics and the Green Revolution remains true to these strengths. The pivotal importance of agricultural productivity in shaping the present political, economic, and social context is researched well and presented suitably in this book. Our urban-dominated society might be surprised to learn of the connections the author has uncovered between domestic and foreign policy issues and the history of wheat breeding. Nevertheless, it would be advanta- geous to our future supply of food for the public to understand these connections.

The term "Green Revolution" was invented by the popular press to de- scribe the dramatic increase in cereal

grain production in several parts of the world beginning in the late 1960s. The science of what became the Green Revolution can be traced directly back to the research findings and subsequent interpretations of the work of Darwin and Mendel. Au- thor John H. Perkins painstakingly follows the thread of genetic inherit- ance and selection in wheat from its seminal beginnings, through work in the early 1900s on the inheritance of disease resistance, to Norman E. Borlaug's Nobel Peace Prize-winning work on breeding semidwarf wheat varieties. Along the way, Perkins highlights the lives and contributions of those scientists who played piv- otal roles in what has become mod- ern wheat breeding. For those read- ers needing a primer on the botany of wheat and its evolution into the world's most important food source, the author provides a brief yet ad- equate one.

The geographic backdrop on which the book focuses includes the United States, Mexico, Great Brit- ain, and India. Seemingly unrelated historical occurrences in these coun- tries are shown to be not only related but in fact closely linked. For ex- ample, in 1846 the British Corn Laws were repealed, thus ending a tariff barrier on the importation of wheat and other grains into Great Britain from other European countries as well as from North America. As a result, the British could import wheat for less than it cost them to produce the crop themselves. The switch to imported wheat led to decreased sta- bility of commodity markets in Brit- ain and an increase in interdepen- dency among Britain's trading partners for basic food supplies. Eventually, the leaders of many na- tions realized that the key to eco- nomic, political, and social survival was a self-dependency on higher ag- ricultural yields at reduced costs. Countries that were simply unable to meet their own food needs would need to partner with allies. Thus, agriculture (in particular, wheat) became essential to the national se- curity of these countries. Moreover, excess agricultural production pro- vided a way for countries to extend their influence outside their own borders. Each of the four countries Perkins discusses managed to enhance

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