Amazon.com description: Product Description: This title is volume 8 of the Advances in Economic Botany series. These papers provide a rich and diverse sampling of research conducted by the staff and collaborators of the Institute of Economic Botany of The New York Botanical Garden. Most of the papers focus on promising yet underexploited neotropical resources and on alternative solutions to modes of economic development that have led to acute deforestation in the humid tropics. Such varied aspects of selected plants as their taxonomy, ecology, nutritional composition, uses, management, local nomenclature, and influence on regional history are discussed. Includes indexes to scientific and common names.