In this new, complete Guide to Texas Grasses, Robert B. Shaw and the team at the Texas A&M University Institute of Renewable Natural Resources provide an indispensable reference to the world’s most economically important plant family. After discussing the impact of grass on our everyday lives as food, biofuels, land restoration, erosion control, and water become ever more urgent issues worldwide—the book then provides:a description of the structure of the grass plant;details of the classification and distribution of Texas grasses;brief species accounts;distributional maps;color photographs;plus black-and-white drawings of 670 grass species—native, introduced, and ornamental. Scientific keys help identify the grasses to group, genera, and species, and an alphabetized checklist includes information on: origin (native or introduced); longevity (annual or perennial);growth season (cool or warm season); endangered status;and occurrence (by ecological zone). A glossary, literature citations, and a quick index to genera round out the book. Guide to Texas Grasses is a comprehensive treatment of Texas grasses meant to assist students, botanists, ecologists, agronomists, range scientists, naturalists, researchers, extension agents, and others who work with or are interested in these important plants.

The many economic factors affecting sustainability of the Gulf of Mexico region are perhaps as important as the waves on its shores and its abundant marine life. This second volume in Gulf of Mexico Origin, Waters, and Biota (a multivolumed work edited by John W. Tunnell Jr., Darryl L. Felder, and Sylvia A. Earle) assesses the Gulf of Mexico as a single economic region.The book provides information and baseline data useful for assessing the goals of economic and environmental sustainability in the Gulf. In five chapters, economists, political scientists, and ecologists from Florida, California, Louisiana, Texas, Maine, and Mexico cover topics such as: the idea of the Gulf as a transnational community; the quantitative value of its productivity; a summary of the industries dependent on the Gulf, including shipping, tourism, oil and gas mining, fisheries, recreation, and real estate; the human uses and activities that affect coastal economies; and the economic trends evident in Mexico's drive toward coastal development.This first-of-its-kind reference work will be useful to scientists, economists, industry leaders, and policy makers whose work requires an understanding of the economic issues involved in science, business, trade, exploration, development, and commerce in the Gulf of Mexico.

"John Freeman tells a story of hope and resilience as the military, early settlers, and eventually land grant university Extension agencies developed the means for growing both ornamental and esculent plants in lands with limited precipitation." —Keith Crotz, The American Gardener

"John F. Freeman's well-researched book is refreshing and implicity optimistic, as were the botanists and horticulturalists who adopted the High Plains as their laboratory in the early twentieth century. I found High Plains Horticulture both educational and entertaining." —Robert Parson, Western Historical Quarterly

High Plains Horticulture explores the significant, civilizing role that horticulture has played in the development of farmsteads and rural and urban communities on the High Plains portions of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming, drawing on both the science and the application of science practiced since 1840. Freeman explores early efforts to supplement native and imported foodstuffs, state and local encouragement to plant trees, the practice of horticulture at the Union Colony of Greeley, the pioneering activities of economic botanists Charles Bessey (in Nebraska) and Aven Nelson (in Wyoming), and the shift from food production to community beautification as the High Plains were permanently settled and became more urbanized. In approaching the history of horticulture from the perspective of local and unofficial history, Freeman pays tribute to the tempered idealism, learned pragmatism, and perseverance of individuals from all walks of life seeking to create livable places out of the vast, seemingly inhospitable High Plains. He also suggests that, slowly but surely, those that inhabit them have been learning to adjust to the limits of that fragile land. High Plains Horticulture will appeal to not only scientists and professionals but also gardening enthusiasts interested in the history of their hobby on the High Plains.

This book aims to contribute to the conservation of the countryside by raising awareness of its value and by providing the scientific basis for its management.

A worldwide forum for state-of-the-art ideas, methods, and techniques in the field, Human Biology focuses on genetics in the broadest sense. Included under this rubric are population genetics, evolutionary and genetic demography, quantitative genetics, genetic epidemiology, behavioral genetics, molecular genetics, and growth physiology parameters focusing on genetic/environmental interactions.

In this book the geological history of the area is described, as are the forces which have created this unique place. The fascinating marine life is explained in the context of the need to protect its biological diversity.

Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard illuminates the meaning of Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman’s life and the environmental and cultural significance of the plant he propagated. Creating a startling new portrait of the eccentric apple tree planter, William Kerrigan carefully dissects the oral tradition of the Appleseed myth and draws upon material from archives and local historical societies across New England and the Midwest. The character of Johnny Appleseed stands apart from other frontier heroes like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, who employed violence against Native Americans and nature to remake the West. His apple trees, nonetheless, were a central part of the agro-ecological revolution at the heart of that transformation. Yet men like Chapman, who planted trees from seed rather than grafting, ultimately came under assault from agricultural reformers who promoted commercial fruit stock and were determined to extend national markets into the West. Over the course of his life John Chapman was transformed from a colporteur of a new ecological world to a curious relic of a pre-market one. Weaving together the stories of the Old World apple in America and the life and myth of John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard casts new light on both.

Written by a neurobiologist and a psychologist, this volume presents a new theory of olfactory perception. Drawing on research in neuroscience, physiology, and ethology, Donald A. Wilson and Richard J. Stevenson address the fundamental question of how we navigate through a world of chemical encounters and provide a compelling alternative to the "reception-centric" view of olfaction. The major research challenge in olfaction is determining how the brain discriminates one smell from another. Here, the authors hold that olfaction is generally not a simple physiochemical process, but rather a plastic process that is strongly tied to memory. They find the traditional approach—which involves identifying how particular features of a chemical stimulus are represented in the olfactory system—to be at odds with historical data and with a growing body of neurobiological and psychological evidence that places primary emphasis on synthetic processing and experiential factors. Wilson and Stevenson propose that experience and cortical plasticity not only are important for traditional associative olfactory memory but also play a critical, defining role in odor perception and that current views are insufficient to account for current and past data. The book includes a broad comparative overview of the structure and function of olfactory systems, an exploration into the mechanisms of odor detection and olfactory perception, and a discussion of the implications of the authors' theory. Learning to Smell will serve as an important reference for workers within the field of chemical senses and those interested in sensory processing and perception.