Shrubs are a long-neglected life form in the forest ecosystem, playing many roles in the life not only of the forest itself but also of the human community that depends on the forest. The planting of shrubs, separately and along with tree crops, should be encouraged in all afforestation programmes in tropical countries. If used correctly, shrubs can act as barriers to water run-off, increase in situ soil and moisture conservation, provide a continuous supply of biomass for use as fuel and fodder, particularly by the poor, and act as inexpensive live fences. Although there are many books on the subject of shrubs in the disciplines of botany and forestry, few emphasise shrubs separately from trees. This paper considers shrubs' potential role in solving the fuelwood and fodder crisis in the biomass-deficient tropical world, which is being aggravated by deforestation. This paper also serves as a useful handbook of shrubs for practising foresters, ecologists, agriculturists and soil conservationists. The first part of this paper concentrates on shrubs' presence in nature, their characteristics, their growth features and their usefulness. Examples, drawn from India, may be applied with appropriate modifications to all tropical forest lands. Propagation methods to multiply shrubs and shrub management are also dealt with in this part. In the second part, 81 shrubs are briefly described with respect to distribution, phenological characteristics, nursery and planting methods and appropriate locality factors.

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