Desert plants are exposed to harsh environmental conditions, such as heat, drought, intense solar radiation, and strong winds. The book analyses the structural adaptations of these plants that allow them to survive.

Inhalt
1 Plant Life Forms of Warm Desert Climates.- 1.1 Distribution and Climates of Warm Deserts.- 1.2 Physiological Problems for Plants.- 1.3 Conceptual Models for Desert Plant Adaptations.- 1.4 Plants of Warm Deserts.- 2 Functional Morphology of Nonsucculent Leaves.- 2.1 Energy Balance of a Leaf.- 2.2 Leaf Size.- 2.3 Encelia as a Model System.- 2.4 Structural Nature of Surface Reflectance.- 2.5 Leaf Orientation and Display.- 2.6 Leaf Rolling and Revolute Margins.- 3 Functional Morphology of Nonsucculent Leaves.- 3.1 Gas Diffusion Pathway.- 3.2 Physiological Anatomy of Nonsucculent Leaves of Desert Plants.- 3.3 Phreatophytes.- 3.4 Herbaceous Species.- 3.5 Fruit Photosynthesis.- 4 Photosynthetic Stems of Nonsucculent Plants.- 4.1 Functional Morphology.- 4.2 Anatomy of Woody Plants.- 4.3 Special Cases.- 5 Succulent Photosynthetic Organs.- 5.1 General Properties of Succulent Photosynthetic Organs.- 5.2 Taxon-Specific Adaptations.- 5.3 Fleshy Leaves.- 6 Special Topics in Water Relations.- 6.1 Xerohalophytes.- 6.2 Water Uptake.- 6.3 Vascular Tissues.- 7 Origins of Desert Structural Adaptations.- 7.1 Where Desert Adaptations Evolved.- 7.2 Warm Desert Versus Semiarid Habitats.- 7.3 Future Directions of Structure-Function Research.- References.- Taxonomic Index.