Mushtaq Ahmad – författare

Melissopalynology: Bee Flora, Pollen and Honey presents a comprehensive guide to the floral biology of honeybee plants. Critical for developing optimal management techniques for honey bee habitats, as well as for the growth and sustainability of the honey economy, this information is key to addressing the problem of predicting resource availability. In addition, it enables successful apiarist planning for effective hive placements and capacity, and provides crucial baseline data to direct habitat and biodiversity management. The book is globally relevant, presenting updates on the characteristics, composition, health properties, contamination, authenticity, and adulteration of honey at the worldwide level, regardless of region.The 100+ bee flora and pollen field notes and photographic atlas sections examine species found in multiple regions throughout the world. Honey has become a highly demanded product for consumers worldwide due to its taste and rich nutritional and medicinal value. However, it remains challenging to identify honey’s origin as well as determine its authenticity. This book summarizes the research and practices carried out in the last decade toward discriminating honey by using characteristic markers.

Plant‑based medicines and aromatics are increasingly in demand in the healthcare sector all over the globe where they are used, not only for the treatment of various diseases, but also for maintaining good human health. Plants as Medicine and Aromatics: Uses of Botanicals reviews modern uses of ancient botanicals as medicine and aromatics, including chapters on both traditional usage and modern drug discovery development, as well as clinical research and development in ancient medicinal herbs.

Features:

A volume in the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, Plants as Medicine and Aromatics: Uses of Botanicals presents a comprehensive understanding in terms of modern uses of botanicals of medicinal and aromatic plants. It is useful to researchers, teachers, cultivators, students, and for those interested in herbal medicine.

Plant‑based medicines and aromatics are increasingly in demand in the healthcare sector all over the globe where they are used, not only for the treatment of various diseases, but also for maintaining good human health. Plants as Medicine and Aromatics: Uses of Botanicals reviews modern uses of ancient botanicals as medicine and aromatics, including chapters on both traditional usage and modern drug discovery development, as well as clinical research and development in ancient medicinal herbs.

Features:

A volume in the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, Plants as Medicine and Aromatics: Uses of Botanicals presents a comprehensive understanding in terms of modern uses of botanicals of medicinal and aromatic plants. It is useful to researchers, teachers, cultivators, students, and for those interested in herbal medicine.

Global Wild Edibles of Deserts: Food Security and Sustainability provides coverage of topics in food and health in desert rangelands, using an interdisciplinary approach that considers health not only in a functional and human sense, but also in terms of external factors including aridity.

The plant diversity in desert ecosystems provide economic service benefits, such as sources of fodder, fuel wood, and traditional medicinal plants. This book documents wild edibles commonly grown in deserts that are hugely beneficial for the herbal industry for the socio-economic uplift of local communities. This book contains multiple field pictorial graphs of desert wild edible plants to help with their identification, and it gives detailed information on food security issues and sustainability measures in the world desert zones. It also focusses on the diversity of wild edibles in deserts across the globe, their nutraceutical importance, production-consumption trends, integration into food menus, and marketing and livelihood opportunities to the indigenous people.

A volume in the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, this book creates opportunity for policymakers to develop plans for the successful entry of wild edibles into herbal industries, and attracts farmers owning infertile lands to cultivate wild edibles in desert rangeland. The book is a valuable resource for researchers, conservationists, and policymakers seeking solutions at the intersection of food security and environmental sustainability.

Global Wild Edibles of Deserts: Food Security and Sustainability provides coverage of topics in food and health in desert rangelands, using an interdisciplinary approach that considers health not only in a functional and human sense, but also in terms of external factors including aridity.

The plant diversity in desert ecosystems provide economic service benefits, such as sources of fodder, fuel wood, and traditional medicinal plants. This book documents wild edibles commonly grown in deserts that are hugely beneficial for the herbal industry for the socio-economic uplift of local communities. This book contains multiple field pictorial graphs of desert wild edible plants to help with their identification, and it gives detailed information on food security issues and sustainability measures in the world desert zones. It also focusses on the diversity of wild edibles in deserts across the globe, their nutraceutical importance, production-consumption trends, integration into food menus, and marketing and livelihood opportunities to the indigenous people.

A volume in the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, this book creates opportunity for policymakers to develop plans for the successful entry of wild edibles into herbal industries, and attracts farmers owning infertile lands to cultivate wild edibles in desert rangeland. The book is a valuable resource for researchers, conservationists, and policymakers seeking solutions at the intersection of food security and environmental sustainability.

The Himalayan region is among the largest mountains systems of the world with uncounted unique medicinal plants resources. The lesser Himalayas ranges are the extension of Greater Himalayas. They have unique ecology, vegetation and diversity of medicinal flora due to tremendous variation in the altitude, climate and associated wildlife.

The utilization of medicinal plants in medicine suffers from the fact that although plants are used to treat diseases, scientific evidence is lacking in many cases. Different societies of the world use the plants according to their own beliefs and knowledge and previous experiences. Their knowledge about the use of the plants is usually not known to the other world or science. This book provides a brief introduction of Lesser Himalayas, ethnobotanical aspects, marketing and anthropogenic pressure on medicinal flora. It comprises one hundred medicinal plant species including Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms and Angiosperms (Monocots and Dicots) along with their scientific description and traditional uses.

Substitution and adulteration in traded herbal raw material are common practice in the herbal industry due to the extinction of required species, deforestation and incorrect taxonomical identification. Herbalists have adopted methods to create high quality adulteration which cannot be detected without performing microscopic examination or chemical analysis. It is difficult to establish specific quality control standards due to the complex nature and innate unpredictability of the chemical constituents of medicinal herbs.The main parameters for measurement and adulteration prevention in medicinal herbs are morphological and microscopic investigation, chemical profiling and DNA barcoding. The need for highly sensitive and more effective approaches for the authentication of medicinal herbs is necessary in order to promote the acceptance of herbal products. 

Adulteration In Traditional Medicinal Herbs is aimed at promoting awareness of adulteration in traditional herbal medicines for the worldwide scientific community. Parameters are established for the prevention of adulteration through classical and modern scientific tools. Valuable case studies are presented based on ethno-medicinal surveys performed in many herbal markets in Pakistan. Collections of various samples were obtained from these shops then compared with the original plants collected from field. Various phytochemical, organoleptic and DNA barcoding techniques were used in order to detect adulteration in the marketed herbal samples. This book is the first of its kind and is aimed at helping the scientific community to identify particular medicinal plants which are facing adulteration problems in herbal markets and to estimate the extent of adulteration and substitution in commonly used medicinal herbs.

Medicinal flora plays an important role in health care systems across the world. Out of the half million flowering plants, around 50.000 species are valued for their therapeutic properties. During the last few decades, 20% of the world’s population used plants and/or their derived products as a source of medicine. WHO stated that 80% population around the globe, specifically the rural communities, depend on medicinal plants for their basic healthcare needs. To this end, plant-based phytochemicals are known to have hepato-protective, anti-carcinogenic, anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant actions. This book is a guide to ~280 plant species of medicinal flora that demonstrates global relevance. Our goal is to share local knowledge about phytomedicines to a worldwide audience. It is an illustrated reference that documents and preserves the existing knowledge on these plant taxa, with a social and cultural (ethnobotanical) emphasis. This book also provides comprehensive and useful information about traditional uses of medicinal plants by the local communities for the treatment of various prevalent diseases. It contains comprehensive descriptions of each species including family, synonyms, English name, distribution, altitude, habitat, morphological description, life form, part used, mode of utilization, diseases category, recipes, other medicinal uses, phytochemical activity and toxicity.

Salinity is one of the acute problems causing enormous yield loss in many regions of the world. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in arid and semiarid regions. Halophytes can remove salt from various types of problematic soils due to their unique morphological, physiological and anatomical adaptations to these environments. Halophytes are also used for the treatment of certain diseases but scientific documentation in terms of current phytotherapic applications is deficient in this unique group of plants. Different ethnic groups around the world use medicinal halophytes according to their own beliefs and ancestor’s experiences. However, their knowledge about the use of salt tolerant medicinal plants is usually confined to their own community. There is thus a knowledge gap on halophytes which should be bridged and preserved. This book provides a comprehensive account on the distribution of halophytes, their ethnobotanical and medicinal aspects, economic importance, and chemical constituents along with scientific description. The book therefore serves as a valuable resource for professionals and researchers working in the fields of plant stress biology and ethnobotanical aspects.

The book provides currently available information on the changing climate and its impact on functional and adaptive features of plants. The book also cover cutting edge research on key determinants of plant growth

that provides a direction towards execution of programs and practices that will assist resilience of crop production systems to the changing climate. This book will represent the updated scientific information regarding soil and plant productivity under changing climate which will be beneficial to academics and researchers working on climate change, agronomy, stress physiology, biotechnology. It provides an in-depth discussion on the latest techniques to enhance plant responses to new environmental conditions that can be directly applied on field.