Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation (Paperback)

by Gary Paul Nabhan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Few of us are familiar with the Okeechobee gourd of the wild sunflower Helianthus exilus , yet these plants are the source of improved garden squash and sunflowers. We need to draw on wild plants for certain qualitiesresistance to disease, insect and drought, tolerance to salt in the soil; the current rate of vegetation destruction in diminishing the availabiity of wild plant resources. Nabhan, assistant director of Phoenix's Desert Botanical Garden and author of The Desert Smells Like Rain , here discusses desert ecology, native American agriculture and wild seed conservation. He looks at centuries of plant culture in the Southwest and takes us to dry tropical forests of Central America where seed agriculture probably originated. Nabhan focuses on specific crops: wild rice, sunflowers, gourds and the "factory" turkey; the latter exemplifies a shallow gene pool (Indians bred turkeys selectively for feathers). Nabhan also reports on seed-conservation groups and their efforts to re-introduce old seeds into the ecosystem. This is for readers interested in ecology, especially for gardeners, farmers, botanists.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This unusual book presents the history of and the principles behind Native American farming methods. Those generally forgotten methods, still observable in scattered locations, especially in Latin America, are fading as the people and cultures that have maintained them through the centuries dwindle. With their demise we are losing the plants themselves: cultivated plants adapted to local conditions, together with their wild relatives (allowed to grow in and near the fields) with which they occasionally cross and gain genetic diversity. A detailed warning as to the consequences of losing this genetic stock can be found in Carolyn Jabs's The Heirloom Gardener ( LJ 7/84). Nabhan's readable account explains how and why we have arrived at this point.
- Annette Aiello, Smithsonian Tropical Research Inst., Panama
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816522596
• ISBN-13: 978-0816522590
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #260,012 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Things we need to heed!, February 27, 2001

By	Vaughn Bryant Jr. (College Station, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation (Paperback)

Paul Nabhan's latest book is a delight to read. His clear writing style and effective way of illustrating important points gives the reader a pleasant break from the more technical books on the topic of seed evolution and dispersion. But don't be deceived by its ease of reading, the book is full of facts about early native agricultural practices in North and Central America, contains warnings about our loss of natural vegetation, especially rain forests, and tells of our rapid loss of plant diversity.

Dr. Nabhan is the cofounder of an organization called Native Seeds and is currently Assistant Director of the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. In these dual roles he has had ample opportunity to observe what is happening to our natural vegetation and to record how the diversity of plants in our world continues to shrink at an alarming rate.

His book is divided into a series of chapters each with names intended to draw the reader's interest. Examples include: "Turning Foxholes into Compost Heaps," "Drowning in a Shallow Gene Pool," and "Invisible Erosion." Each of his 12 chapters focuses on an important point. The first one presents an interesting history of plant evolution from the earliest Paleozoic times through the late Cenozoic and explains how the large, plant gene pool created the wonderful diversity we have all come to enjoy. In the next several chapters Dr. Nabhan first addresses the great diversity of plants found in forests of the wet and dry tropics and next speaks about how this great diversity led to the emergence of many cultigens we now depend upon for our staples. He also points with alarm to how rapidly this diversity is being lost as large areas are converted to agricultural lands or are clear cut for their lumber. Other chapters focus on the need for saving examples of seeds from plants that are becoming extinct and the advantages in tropical areas of using local plant species and local farming techniques instead of introduced hybrid plants and "modern" agricultural techniques. In later chapters Dr. Nabhan chronicles the demise of wild rice in the Great Lakes region, the near loss of a species of rare gourd in Florida, and why the production of maize in many areas of the northern Great Plains is not nearly as great today as it was in past generations. Finally, he offers a word of caution to plant geneticists saying that they could learn a lot from looking at the problems associated with the raising of domestic turkeys.

The main theme of Dr. Nabhan's book focuses on the need for plant diversity and how the maintaining of a wide gene pool for each species is critical for the survival of each species. All of this, he cautions, has direct effects upon mankind because many of these plants form elements of our primary food supply. Throughout the book the author inserts brief warnings for the reader to ponder. On page 27, for example, the author notes the prevailing attitude among many plant geneticists. He quotes one of them as saying, "If we need rare strains to breed a stronger variety of grain in the event of an epidemic, we go out and collect them." The problem, as Dr. Nabhan notes, is that already for many plants there are no longer wild strains to use.