Economic Botany: Plants in our World
by Beryl Simpson, Molly Ogorzaly

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Book Reviews of Economic Botany: Plants in our World

Book Review: Comprehensive
Summary: 4 Stars

Overall, the text is fairly complete, although there are a few omissions and sloppy errors. For example, I was quite puzzled over lack of coverage of the entire ribes family in the temperate fruits section. Perhaps currants and gooseberries aren't well known in the US today, but they were in the past, and they are certainly important in Europe. In the vegetable section, the authors note that spinach is a good source of folic acid and they suggest that "It may have been the folic acid . . . as well as the iron that helped give Popeye his energy." Unfortunately, they didn't critically examine spinach as a source of iron; it is well known today that many other vegetables have much more iron and that the iron in spinach is not as readily absorbable as that found in other vegetables. Such cursory treatment will ensure that readers who are not aware of the limited value of spinach as a source of iron will continue to be misinformed. Rather than treating such subjects so briefly, it would have been better to set the facts straight. In addition to these minor problems, there were a few strange typos that should have been caught, especially in a third edition, such as "Uzbeckistan", and mis-converting Celsius to Fahrenheit "Deciduous trees on the south and west sides . . . reduce temperatures as much as 5 C to 5.5 C (41 to 42 F) inside." Wow! Those are some trees!

Aside from these small limitations, the book might be useful as a textbook for an undergraduate economic botany class. It might also be of interest to garden enthusiasts, although it's rather dry reading.

Summary of Economic Botany: Plants in our World

General Books

• Science
• Biological Sciences > Botany
• Professional & Technical > Engineering > Bioengineering > Biotechnology
• Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Botany