For centuries biologists have been extremely interested in the structure
of desert plants as examples of natural selection to harsh environmental
conditions. Indeed, desert plants are frequently used as examples in
many biology classes and textbooks to illustrate natural selection, but
this has led to an unfortunate litany of errors and misconceptions about
desert plant adaptations.
This new synthesis focuses on plants of lowland tropical and subtropical
arid deserts. Readers will be surprised to discover that many features
commonly ascribed to desert plants are rareley observed in the most
common species. Instead, the typical structural adaptations of
nonsucculent warm desert plants are now viewed as ways to maximize
photosynthetic rate.