A tropical and sub-tropical food forest is a cornucopia of luscious food, which thrives on drawing carbon out of the atmosphere to grow trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants and climbers producing fruits, seeds, oils, greens, flowers, drinks and herbs. There are thousands of known food plants which thrive in hot climate zones, plants discovered and improved from time immemorial, from before the Agricultural Revolution brought about deforestation and land degradation to provide grains to feed city states. Our human ancestors were gatherers and gardeners; we may well have evolved with large brains to store and share knowledge of where nutritious plants were to be found, and how to modify nature to encourage them.
Most books about food forests or forest gardens concentrate on the design principles involved, or on examining case studies. The focus of this book is the plants, their characteristics and personalities, what they have to offer a food forest ecosystem, as well as what kinds of foods they can yield.
This book contains details of 250+ plants selected for a mix of different growing conditions, plant size and structure, type of food, and contribution to a tropical food forest ecosystem. They are arranged in sections corresponding to their key characteristics and the forest layer in which they will be used: Trees, Shrubs, Cacti, Bamboos, Climbers, Bulbs, Herbaceous Perennials, Ferns. Each section has a quick-reference table of their edibility characteristics and other details including size and if they are nitrogen fixing.