A SCOTS professor is to use her retirement to undertake a round-the-world trip with a difference in an effort to unlock the secrets of hundreds of plants so they can be used to help feed the people of developing nations.

Instead of taking it easy and savouring her retirement, Professor Janet Sprent will travel to out of the way places so she can study, examine, and catalogue the native plants of many Third World countries.

The 64-year-old said yesterday that there is not enough known about the plant life of developing countries and if their potential could be unlocked, they could be used to improve crop yields and help people out of hunger and poverty.

In a career spanning 35 years, Professor Sprent, deputy principal of Dundee University, has earned a global reputation for her work as a biologist and now will put her vast experience into producing an unique plant reference over the next three years.

The guide will be on the legume family - plants including peas, beans, and clover - which have the capacity to produce protein-rich forage and seeds which help enrich soil. This is a particularly important attribute in countries which struggle to grow enough to feed their populations due to poor soil.

She said: ''One of the difficulties in the past has been conflicting reports about legume plants and their potential. With a solid reference guide such as this, people would be able to say with confidence 'we have this plant, we know it has this potential so we should concentrate our energies on developing it rather than another member of the family which does not have the same potential for soil improvement'.''

It is hoped that the guide can be used by developing countries to identify with which plants their best hopes of agricultural development lie.

In August, less than a month after she retires from her job at Dundee, she will leave Scotland to visit the flooded islands of the Orinoco in Venezuela.

The professor said: ''Over the next few years, I see my role as collecting the information, collating the information, and writing it into a guide that, hopefully, people can understand. Over the years our Dundee team has done some sterling research in this field.

''It's a privilege to me to build on this work and that of the international community of plant researchers, pulling that knowledge together within a single volume for such a worthwhile purpose.''

The guide, which will be sold at cost, will be launched in Melbourne, Australia in 2001 at an international conference on the legume family.