Desert Plants Biology and Biotechnology
Deserts appear very fascinating during our short visits. However, the lives of plants and animals are very dif?cult under the harsh climatic conditions of high tempe- ture and scant water supply in deserts, sometimes associated with high concent- tions of
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K.G. Ramawat Editor
Desert Plants Biology and Biotechnology
Editor Prof. Dr. K.G. Ramawat M.L. Sukhadia University Department of Botany Udaipur 313001, India e-mail: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-3-642-02549-5 e-ISBN: 978-3-642-02550-1 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-02550-1 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938013 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover illustration: Capparis decidua (Photo K.G. Ramawat) Cover design: WMXDesign GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
Deserts appear very fascinating during our short visits. However, the lives of plants and animals are very difficult under the harsh climatic conditions of high temperature and scant water supply in deserts, sometimes associated with high concentrations of salt. The editor of this book was born and brought up in the Great Indian Desert, and has spent much of his life studying the growth and metabolism of desert plants. It is very charming on a cool summer evening to sit at the top of a sand dune listening only to blowing air and nothing else. It has been my dream to prepare a volume on desert plants encompassing various aspects of desert plant biology. In this book, I have tried to present functional and useful aspects of the vegetation resources of deserts along with scientific input aimed at understanding and improving the utility of these plants. The scant vegetation of deserts supports animal life and provides many useful medicines, timber and fuel wood for humans. Therefore, there are chapters devoted to medicinal plants (Chap. 1), halophytes (Chaps. 13, 14), and fruit plants (Chaps. 17, 20). Desert plants have a unique reproductive biology (Chaps. 9–11), well-adapted eco-physiological and anatomical characteristics (Chap. 7), and specialised metabolism and survival abilities. These plants are difficult to propagate and pose many problems to researchers developing biotechnological approaches for their amelioration (Chaps. 18–20). Covering all the above aspects, this book provides an excellent amalgam of the morphology, physiology and biotechnology of desert plants
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