Man's symbiosis with plants is the most fundamental material fact of human life on the earth. Geographers, as well as botanists, anthropologists and other scientists, have long been interested in this aspect of the man-nature theme. In American geography, CARL O. SAUER emphasized a temporal as well as spatial perspective in the cultural understanding of man's relationship to biological phe nomena. His researches and those of his associates in the 'Berkeley school' showed that the most fruitful possibilities for implementing this approach are in non industrial societies which have direct and...