الفهرس 
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Abstract
The present investigation deals with the ecological and the economic potentialities of three taxa namely; Artemisia monosperma, Limbarda crithmoides and Xanthium strumarium belonging to family Asteraceae • These species attracted the attention due to their economical, medicinal and industrial uses. Also, they are abundant and have wide ecological amplitude in the Deltaic and Western Mediterranean Coastal land of Egypt. This study includes four parts as follows: Part 1, concerning the botanical aspects of the chosen taxa to contribute more knowledge about their morphological, anatomical, karyological charcteristics, taxonomic positions and seed germination under different environmental conditions. Part 2, gives a detailed description of several representative stands of their communities. For each community type the analytical, synthetic, floristic and habitat characteristics are given. Part 3, comprises the extraction with successive solvents to put the chemical constituents of the plants shoots in a measurable forma determination of the primary metabolites including moisture, ash, crude fibers, Lipids, protein, Soluble sugars and total carbohydrates . Also estimation of antioxidant and antibacterial activities of the different extracts of the plants shoots. Part 4, evaluation of the economic potentialities of Xanthium strumarium shoot, including: nutritive value, ascorbic acid content, bioactive secondry metabolites (Flavonoids, phenols and alkaloids), fatty acids, protein amino acids, mineralomass and monthly changes in the saponins and tannins contents of X.strumarium. Regarding the morphological characteristics, A. monosperma is a frutescent chamaephyte with all shoots close together forming cushion. It is a shrublet perennating by buds giving rise to new growth each year. The foliage leaves are dark green, alternate, sessile, linear- oblanceolate have entire margin, obtuse apex and parallelodromous fine primary veins. L. crithmoides is a halophytic perennial low shrub of strong smell. The deep stout tap root enables the plant to re-sprouts year after year. The leaves are simple linear alternate , partially clasped the stem and have a basal crodromous primary vein category. Xanthium is minutely puberulent bushy summer - autum active annual plant with mush branched stem. The leaves are palmatified, alternate , two-ranked and commonly have five broad lobes. The primary vein category is superbasal actinodromous. The microscopic examination of the cross sections of stems and leaves revealed that, the stems of the three plants are typical dicot stems, and the leaves of both Artemisia and Limbarda are isobilateral with uniform structure on both surfaces and covered with a thick cuticle, while leaf of Xanthium is dorsiventral showing a similar pattern of most dicots. The chromosomes number found to be 2n = 36 in Artemisia, 2n = 18 in Limbarda and 2n = 36 in Xanthium. The chromosomes are generally short in Artemisia. Seed germination experiments give evidence that the percentage of germination decreased gradually with increasing of salinity level. The seeds of the investigated plants had the capacity to germinate between 20-40 ºC. The excess in the amount of rainfall was associated with successive increase in the number of germinated seeds. The maximum rate of germination being in the petri-dishes placed in continuous light. The data obtained from the ecological investigations showed that, the floristic components of Artemisia community type were 52 species belong to 21 family and A. monosperma has the greatest cover and total number of individuals. Hordeum, anthemis and Stipa are the most common associates. Therophytes constitute the major life - form. This community usually recorded in loose sand plains. The halophytic vegetation of Limbarda community type comprises 25 species belong to 14 families, among them 3 species are monocots and 22 species are dicots and have been classified into 12 perennials, 11 annuals and 2 biennials. The soil supporting L.crithmoides is usually dark-coloured with thin surface crust of salts. The vegetation assemblage of Xanthium community restricted to 20 species, belonging to 12 families. Therophytes and geophytes are common life- forms. Most species related to Mediterranean and Irano - Turanian floristic categories. The soil is mainly of fine and medium sand (44%), while clay was relatively low (3.6 - 8.7 %). The percentages of the residues of the different extracts of the aerial parts of A. monosperm, L.crithmoides and X.strumarium were attained the highest values with pet.ether and water extracts of Artemisia, ethanol and water extracts of Limbarda leaves and pet.ether, methnol and water extracts of Xanthium . Analysis is of primary metabolites indicted that, the higher value of moisture (17.0%), total ash (10.0%) and total lipids (5.0%) were recorded in Limbarda leaves. Total protein ( 17.53( in Xanthium leaves, while total carbohydrates and soluble sugars (0.75 and 0.40%, respectively) attained in Artemisia leaves. Regarding the antibacterial assay, Petether and ethanol extracts of Artemisia stems and leaves, acetone and ethanol extracts of Limbarda leaves and Xanthium stems showed inhibitory activity against Bacillus subtilis and staphylococcus aureus. The overall goal of the present phytochemical analysis was to investigate the economic potentialities of Xanthium plant: the nutritive value of shoot was 278.78 ± 26.5 Kcal./100g; Vitamin C content 261 mg/100g in shoots and 246 mg./100g in seeds; phenols flavonoids, alkaloids contents were 2.767, 1.765 and 1.486 g/100g, respectively ; ten fatty acid with Palmitic, Oleic and Linoleic acids are Prevailing; Threonine, Proline, Leucine and Phenylalanine were the major essential amino acids while Aspartic, Glutamic, Glycine and Arginine were the main non-essential amino acids. The macro-nutrients (K, Ca, Mg and Na) and micro-elements (Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn) were absorbed and accumulated in Xanthium shoot as reflection of the native environment. Detection of the monthly variation in saponins and tannins contents showed that, saponins were reached the highest concentration (10.24 %) in June but for tannins (4.25 %) in March. According to the results of the present work, it may be deduce how far the economic future of the Xanthium, Artemisa and Limbarda plants.