

One Book -- 10,000 PlantsBy Hank Becker April 9, 1999A new book covering 10,000 of the world's economically important
plants greatly expands upon an out-of-date, out-of-print reference long popular
with botanists, other scientists, teachers and others. The new 784-page volume is World Economic Plants: A Standard
Reference. It stems from Agricultural Handbook 505, published in 1977 by
the U.S. Department of Agriculture and
revised in 1986. Two scientists with the Agricultural Research Service, USDA's
principal scientific agency, wrote the new book. It provides information
required by scientists and others who study, identify or classify crop plants,
weeds, poisonous plants and other plants of economic importance, including
those with medicinal and industrial potential. World Economic Plants was published under a cooperative
research and development agreement between ARS and
CRC Press of Boca Raton, Fla. The earlier book was A Checklist of Names for 3,000 Vascular
Plants of Economic Importance. The new one gives reference information on
three times as many plants--nearly 10,000 in all. Like the 1977 handbook,
World Economic Plants supplies accepted scientific names, important
synonyms and common names. But it also provides economic uses and geographical
distribution. The new information reflects more than two decades of research by
ARS plant taxonomists. The project arose from the need for consistent as well
as accurate data in the Germplasm Resources
Information Network (GRIN) databases used by researchers and others around
the globe. The new data are being added to GRIN databases on a World Wide Web
site of ARS' National Plant Germplasm
System: http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs The book's authors are taxonomists John W. Wiersema and Blanca
León of ARS' Systematic Botany and
Mycology Laboratory, Beltsville, Md. The book, priced at $125.00, is
available from CRC Press. More details can be found at a
CRC catalog web site. Scientific contact: John W. Wiersema, ARS Systematic
Botany and Mycology Laboratory, Beltsville, Md., phone (301) 504-9181, fax
504-5810, [email protected]. Story contacts Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory U.S. Department of Agriculture | |