EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about the plants of the Amazon

A 353 page book has just been published, Fruit Trees and Useful Plants in Amazonian Life.

A co-production of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and People and Plants International (PPI) it aims to describe all the commercially or medically important plants in the Amazon region, and it is amazingly comprehensive.

For example
For the Buriti Palm (Mauritia flexuosa) there is a description of it's ecology, how they can be cultivated, the average yield (up to 360 kg per tree in a year!), economics (1 litre of Buriti juice costs about $1) and a COMPLETE guide to it's possible uses, including how to make traditional toys.
There is a description of the cultural significance of the plant, the animals that eat the fruit or nest in the branches, and even a recipe for Buriti frozen creme! All illustrated with line drawings.

And, the guide is free! It can be found at...
http://www.fao.org/docrep/015/i2360e/i2360e.pdf