PROBLEMS AND RESULTS IN ISRAEL 401 
Selection of Plants for Sand Dune Fixation (12) 
Great areas of the Negev lands are composed of shifting and 
semi-mobile sand dunes. In order to fix those dunes and at the 
same time derive some economic profit from the plants which 
are being used for the fixation, the ecology and economic value 
of all the plant communities growing naturally on sand dunes of 
our area were studied. 
Testing their resistance against blowing out, oversanding, and 
salinity, the following plants were found to be most useful: Fun- 
cus maritimus, fF. acutus, Scirpus holoschoenus, and Eragrostis b1- 
pinnata, which can all be used in paper manufacture. Artemisia 
monosperma as a pharmaceutical plant, dgropyrum junceum, 
Convolvulus secundus, C. lanatus, and Calligonum comosum as 
fodder plants. Here, too, the absolute necessity for close coopera- 
tion with a laboratory for plant physiology was experienced, es- 
pecially in questions of germination and propagation, and with a 
technological laboratory for the testing of the respective plants 
for their usefulness as raw material for paper manufacture or for 
pharmaceutical value. 
In summing up the results obtained regarding the selection of 
suitable plants for desert agriculture, it is important to point out 
that we relied nearly exclusively on the selection of pre-adapted 
ecotypes either of the region to be developed or of neighboring 
phytogeographical territories of Israel. The approach to the prob- 
lem was—with success—an empirical one. Here much has to be 
done in the future—and is now being done—based on very long- 
range scientific planning which has to be not only regional but 
also international. The various ecotypes have to be tested for 
their different qualities under constant controlled conditions. 
Genetic strains of these ecotypes have to be developed and hy- 
bridization experiments to be carried out. 
All this necessitates, again, a well organized international clear- 
ing house for systematic exchange of information and its correla- 
tion. In addition, it is obvious that a small country like Israel 
cannot afford installations which are expensive to build and ex- 
pensive to maintain—where genetic strains developed from local 
