Economic Botany Leaflets

Volume 1 - Fall 1997

WELCOME to the first volume of Economic Botany Leaflets. In this edition we launch our section on policy impacting economic botany with an interview with Senator Paul Simon of The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. We want this interview to be the first in a series of editorials and interviews on issues of interest to the economic botany community. To read the interview please see the the Simon Interview in the Policy Corner below. Also check the link marked Editorial Policy for more information on contributions in the form of policy editorials. We are also open to carrying interviews conducted by our readers. In addition we would like to carry letters to the editors on both reactions to the material in this section and other areas on which you wish to comment. You can link directly to the editors at the end of this page.

Paul Simon (Click on image for EBL interview)

For preliminary information on the Society for Economic Botany (SEB) 1998 meeting to be held in Denmark, see the link below in the Meetings section. This information will be updated as it becomes available. There is also information and a link for the International Conference on Medicinal Plants and the XVI International Botanical Congress which will coincide with the 1999 SEB meeting in St. Louis.

Restoration ecology is a discipline which overlaps with economic botany. To learn more about the Society for Ecological Restoration check out their web page. SER's next meeting will be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida November 12-15. Please also check Claudia Gonzalez-Romo's introduction to the II International Congress, Etnobotanica 97, to be held in Merida, Yucatan this fall. Both are also in the Meetings section.

For a good time, check Photos of the 1997 SEB Meeting in St. Louis. You may see someone you know.

Dan Austin, book review editor for The Journal of Economic Botany has requested that we link you directly to the Journal Editor's Web Page. This page includes links to both Dan and Lawrence Kaplan, the editor of the journal. Dan has requested that particular attention be drawn to a list of books that need reviewers. It is hoped that everyone will pitch in to keep the Society for Economic Botany, its journal and the state of our discipline healthy.

Congratulations to SEB president-elect, Professor Gail E. Wagner and new treasurer, Professor John Rashford, both of the Department of Anthropology of the University of South Carolina at Columbia. Congratulations also to new SEB Council members, Steve King and Deena Decker-Walters.

Carlos Ochoa of the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru is the 1997 Distinguished Economic Botanist.

New to the Plant Tidbit section is information on Kudzu- Daidzin and Puerarin, featuring two papers on extracts from this plant utilized to reduce biochemical addiction to alcohol.

Galleria Botanica's newest feature is a direct link to the Smithsonian Catalogue of Botanical Illustration. Included are works by 11 artists in 3 families, Bromeliaceae, Cactaceae and Melastomataceae. Species from over 100 genera are available for personal use and study.

Your feedback is welcome and encouraged.