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The first overview is presented of the paper contents of Kew's Economic Botany Collections (EBC). There are more than 350 specimens of paper representing nearly 50 plant families and more than a hundred genera. The dominant families numerically – and each for different reasons – are the Moraceae, Gramineae, Thymelaeaceae and Cyperaceae, examples from which are highlighted. Some emphasis is given to the historical context and geographical origin of papers, and to the people who collected or donated them. It is suggested that one focus of a future collecting strategy for the EBC should be the sorts of plant products, including papers, that are under threat due to losses of cultural diversity or biological diversity, or both.

The first overview is presented of the paper contents of Kew's Economic Botany Collections (EBC). There are more than 350 specimens of paper representing nearly 50 plant families and more than a hundred genera. The dominant families numerically – and each for different reasons – are the Moraceae, Gramineae, Thymelaeaceae and Cyperaceae, examples from which are highlighted. Some emphasis is given to the historical context and geographical origin of papers, and to the people who collected or donated them. It is suggested that one focus of a future collecting strategy for the EBC should be the sorts of plant products, including papers, that are under threat due to losses of cultural diversity or biological diversity, or both.

This article explores the Spanish crown's efforts to study, cultivate, and transplant
spices from the East Indies to the West Indies and then to Spain in the sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries. Beginning with Christopher Columbus's first observations
of New World flora, the Spanish crown sought out spices to cultivate for economic
gain. Although they were ultimately unsuccessful in efforts to generate a large-scale
spice trade, colonial officials and local entrepreneurs participated in a coordinated program
of empirical information gathering and botanical experimentation that is itself of
historical significance. For the empirical and experimental—"scientific"—methods
they represented serve to challenge and enhance current understanding of several historiographical
themes: the origins of economic botany and the Scientific Revolution
more generally, the role of human agency in the Columbian exchange, and the dissemination
of knowledge from imperial centers to colonial peripheries.

Plants for Food and Medicine: Proceedings of the Joint Conference of the Society for Economic Botany and the International Society for Ethnopharmacology. H. D. V. Prendergast. N. L. Etkin. D. R. Harris. and P. J. Houghton. eds. Kew, Richmond, UK: Scientific Publications Dept., Royal Botanic Gardens, 1998. 438 pp.

This book deals with arid and semi-arid environments and their classification, and the physiological restraints and adaptations of plants to the environment. Further, it discusses economic botany and the needs and methods of conserving economic plants. A broad view is taken regarding the definition of economic plants, taking into account their value to the environment as well as to man and to livestock. The individual deserts and associated semi-arid regions are described in separate chapters, providing background information on the regional environments in terms of climate and major plant formations. The economic plants within these formations, their usages, geographical distribution together with their morphological and physiological adaptations are treated in detail