Excerpt from Botanical Features of North American Deserts Botanical science in its technical and applied branches has reached a stage of development in which it has become plainly evident that adequate progress in research in physiology, in comprehensions of life histories, and in formulating the general principles governing the origin, environic relations and distributional movements of plants may be expected only by experimental methods in the field or in actual contact with the types of plants under consideration under normal environmental conditions. In no part of the subject is this so imperative as in the study of the xerophytic and highly specialized forms characteristic of the desert regions of the world, which comprise a total area equal to that of a large continent. The aridity, widely ranging temperatures of soil and air, physical and chemical properties of the soils, conditions of insolation and radio-activity, together with the special forces modifying distribution, furnish a set of conditions not easily duplicated by the regulation of the artificial climates of glass-houses and not adequately represented by preserved material in herbaria and other collections. A European botanist of ability scarcely lays down his work at the end of a life of zeal and industry devoted to the study of the cacti under cultivation in a climate entirely foreign to them, when an examination of these peculiar forms in their native habitats reveals the necessity for a complete repetition of the entire investigation. When the Carnegie Institution of Washington was established, Mr. Frederick V. Coville determined to present to it a plan for a Desert Botanical Laboratory. This long-cherishcd project was an outcome of his work in the Death Valley Expedition, in 1891. A plan was accordingly drawn up by him and presented to the Institution's Advisory Committee in Botany. This committee considered and approved it because it promised results concerning the fundamental processes of protoplasm as important as any in the whole realm of botany. The Board of Trustees of the Institution also gave their approval to it, and appropriated $8,000 for the establishment of such a laboratory and its maintenance for one year. Messrs. Coville and MacDougal were appointed by the Institution as an Advisory Board in relation to the matter. This Board decided to place the Laboratory under the immediate charge of a resident investigator, who should carry on researches under its guidance, and should be responsible to it in his relations to the Institution. 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.

Following a description of the physical and biological characterization of the four North American deserts together with the primary adaptations of plants to environmental stress, the authors go on to present case studies of key species. They provide an up-to-date and comprehensive review of the major patterns of adaptation in desert plants, with one chapter devoted to several important exotic plants that have invaded these deserts. The whole is rounded off with a synthesis of the resource requirements of desert plants and how they may respond to global climate change.