This book is an attempt to compile and integrate the information
documented by many botanists, both Egyptians and others, about the
vegetation of Egypt. The ? rst treatise on the ? ora of Egypt, by Petrus
Forsskal, was published in 1775. Records of the Egyptian ? ora made
during the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt (1778-1801) were provided by
A. R. Delile from 1809 to 1812 (Kassas, 1981). The early beginning of
ecological studies of the vegetation of Egypt extended to the
mid-nineteenth century. Two traditions may be recognized. The ? rst was
general exploration and survey, for which one name is symbolic:
Georges-Auguste Schweinfurth (1836-1925), a German scientist and
explorer who lived in Egypt from 1863 to 1914. The second tradition was
ecophysiological to explain the plant life in the dry desert. The work
of G. Volkens (1887) remains a classic on xeroph- ism. These two
traditions were maintained and expanded in further phases of e- logical
development associated with the establishment of the Egyptian University
in 1925 (now the University of Cairo). The ? rst professor of botany was
the Swedish Gunnar Tackholm (1925-1929). He died young, and his wife
Vivi Tackholm devoted her life to studying the ? ora of Egypt and gave
leadership and inspiration to plant taxonomists and plant ecologists in
Egypt for some 50 years. She died in 1978. The second professor of
botany in Egypt was F. W.
