Sun 11-05-2003 08:00 AM
ERWDA releases comprehensive guide on UAE's wild flowers
ABU DHABI, May 11, 2003 (WAM) -- The Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency (ERWDA) has released a guide in English for the public or amateur botanist interested in knowing more about the wild flora of the UAE. The guide entitled +The Comprehensive Guide to the Wild Flowers of the United Arab Emirates+ was written by Marijcke Jongbloed and is a product of the last 20 years of field recording, collecting and studying the wild flora of the UAE and neighboring Oman. Illustrated with over 1,500 colour photographs, the guide is aimed at non-experts in the field, avoids the use of technical botanical terms as much as possible and even contains a glossary to explain some of the technical terminology used. The guide describes 550 wild plants in full detail with another 205 species briefly. It also describes plant distributions in the UAE as well as their local names. The book's author has lived and worked in the UAE since 1983 where she worked as the manager of the Sharjah Desert Park and later as a full-time writer and photographer concentrating on natural history subjects, according to a press release issued today. Sheikh Mansoor bin Zayed Al Nayhan, Director General of H.H. the President's Office and Chairman of First Gulf Bank, which sponsored the book, called the guide just one of ERWDA's many initiatives to preserve and protect the environment. He also added that First Gulf Bank supports ERWDA and appreciates the cause of identification and documentation of the wild flora in the UAE. MORE WAM-VV
