The Río Mayo region of northwestern Mexico is a major geographic area whose natural history remains poorly known to outsiders. Lying in a region where desert and tropical, northern and southern, and continental and coastal species converge, it boasts an abundance of flora first documented by Howard Scott Gentry in 1942 in a book now widely regarded as a classic of botanical literature. This new book updates and amends Gentry's Río Mayo Plants. Undertaken with Gentry's support and participation before his death in 1993, it reproduces the original text, which appears here with annotations, and contains information on over 2,800 taxa—more than twice the 1,200 species first described by Gentry. The annotated list of plants includes information on distribution, habitat, appearance, common names, and indigenous uses. A new introduction provides historical background and a review of geography and vegetation. It also describes changes to the land and river wrought by agricultural development, expanded grazing, and lumbering. Throughout the text, the authors have endeavored to provide information on Río Mayo vegetation while emphasizing local knowledge and use of plants, to preserve Gentry's field-oriented focus, and to present botanical information with Gentry's exuberance and style. Río Mayo Plants has long stood as a book that displays a scientist's love of the English language, his fondness for native peoples, and his eye for beauty in nature. This updating of that work fills a gap in the botanical literature of this portion of North America and will be useful not only for botanists but also for biogeographers, taxonomists, land managers, and conservationists.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"This is a major revision and updating of Howard Scott Gentry's famous book on the plants of northwestern Mexico. . . . The book is a classic because it is at once a scientific text and the story of a quest. Gentry had a gift for expressive prose which he put to good use in his unorthodox and highly effective descriptive annotations. The editors of this second edition have done justice to their task. . . . This new edition, like its original evidently a labor of love, also successfully conveys the richness and beauty of the vegetation and the landscape." —Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
About the Author
Paul S. Martin is a professor emeritus of geosciences at the University of Arizona.
David Yetman is a research social scientist at the University of Arizona and host of the television show The Desert Speaks.
B>Mark Fishbein currently teaches at Washington State University.
Phil Jenkins is an assistant curator of the University of Arizona Herbarium.
David Yetman is a research social scientist at the University of Arizona and host of the television show The Desert Speaks.
B>Mark Fishbein currently teaches at Washington State University.
Phil Jenkins is an assistant curator of the University of Arizona Herbarium.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent reference book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Gentry's Rio Mayo Plants: The Tropical Deciduous Forest and Environs of Northwest Mexico (Southwest Center Series) (Hardcover)
Located in a transition zone between the Sonoran Desert and the tropics,this region is well known for its biodiversity, thanks to a 1942 study by botanist Howard Scott Gentry. Revision of his classic work began before his death in 1993. For researchers, this is a must-read book. It provides a clear overview of botanical studies of the Rio Mayo, a contemporary view of the vegatation, excerpts from the original text and an annotated list of plants.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review of "Gentry's Rio Mayo Plants",
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This review is from: Gentry's Rio Mayo Plants: The Tropical Deciduous Forest and Environs of Northwest Mexico (Southwest Center Series) (Hardcover)
For anyone interested in the vegetation of Sonora, Mexico this book is a must! Back in the early 1980s I was very fortunate to be able to buy a copy of the original Smithsonian book published in 1942 and this current version is a wonderful update of that earlier work. The new book includes additional plant accounts from years of plant collecting in southeast Sonora by botanists at the University of Arizona in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The authors are careful to keep Gentry's original accounts in parentheses.
Gentry spent a considerable amount of time traveling in the Alamos region of southeast Sonora during the late 1930s and during these travels he collected interesting information concerning the local names and medicinal uses of the plants of southern Sonora. In reading the plant descriptions and associated plant habitats you can almost envision the plant growing and flowering in its native habitat. This book is nicely complimented by "Sonoran Desert Plants" and "The Trees of Sonora, Mexico" which look with greater depth into the larger plants and trees of Sonora.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hidden treasure,
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This review is from: Gentry's Rio Mayo Plants: The Tropical Deciduous Forest and Environs of Northwest Mexico (Southwest Center Series) (Hardcover)
I was given the opportunity to catalog Dr. Gentry's herbarium collection at the Desert Botanical Garden in 1987-88. I haven't seen the new edition mentioned here, but read the original work at the time I was cataloging his herbarium specimens. Through it, I was able to share his experience as an explorer in the spirit of John Wesley Powell, someone who knew that the American southwest is best delineated by watersheds, not along false lat/long lines. I met Dr. Gentry a couple of times, and remember the occasions well. Last time I saw him, when I was cataloging his collection, I overheard a conversation between him and a consultant for the Fort McDowell Indian Community. The consultant was asking about desert-adapted crop plants. Dr. Gentry went into great detail describing many desert plants suited to agriculture - tepary beans, jojoba, Lippia (Mexican oregano), agave, chiltepines, gum arabic, etc. I learned a lot just by eavesdropping. The consultant listened, but did not hear the words. He recommended that the Fort McDowell people plant cotton. Not because it was best suited to desert agriculture - far from that. They planted cotton because it needs vast quantities of water. They did not want the best desert-adapted crops. What they wanted, instead, was the best crop for wasting water, so that they could establish valid rights to the water. Worse, I watched them clear off vast acreages of mesquite forests to make room for the water-wasting cotton crop. The Hopi call this koyaanisqatsi. This book should help folks in southwestern north America realize that we have a bounteous resource, if we can only learn to use it.
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