Abstract
Knowledge about folk medicines is limited to elder community members of remote communities, like Sete Cidades in the Azores. The Azores, 1300 km west of Portugal, are nine volcanic islands, totalling 2330 km2 of land dispersed by 173,200 km2 in the North Atlantic Ocean. The present study aims to scientifically document the uses of plant species for medicinal purposes, in the Sete Cidades. Twenty-eight community members from 40 to 84 years of age, of whom half were 55 to 64 years old, were interviewed. Twenty-nine taxa were reported as being used for medicinal purposes, ten of which have not been previously reported for ethnomedicinal use in Portugal, with a first record of the use of Morella faya. Leaves were the most used plant part (55%), and decoction the most common preparation mode. The five reported taxa with both the highest use value (0.71–0.25) and relative frequency of citation (0.14–0.11) were Clinopodium menthifolium subsp. ascendens, Aloysia citriodora, Mentha x piperita, Citrus limon and Rosmarinus officinalis. The traditional uses of some of the reported plants are supported by scientific studies, confirming their ethnomedicinal value and the need to preserve local knowledge of folk medicine practices.
Highlights
Knowledge about the medicinal properties of plants has been transmitted from generation to generation, and is directly linked to the local culture, faith and other beliefs, and is the study object of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology [1,2]
The assessment of the traditional knowledge of plant uses through ethnopharmacological surveys, and its documentation, is essential for the conservation of the local culture and of natural resources, being an incentive to research the use of plants with a view to providing scientific substantiation of reported medicinal applications
The present study collected relevant information about the medicinal plants used by the community of Sete Cidades, helping to preserve local knowledge about the uses of plants in this region and to attract future generations to the use of folk medicines
Summary
Knowledge about the medicinal properties of plants has been transmitted from generation to generation, and is directly linked to the local culture, faith and other beliefs, and is the study object of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology [1,2]. In rural societies and developing countries, the use of medicinal plants is both a necessity and valuable resource, providing an alternative for primary health care systems, income generation and livelihood improvement, while in developed countries, traditional medicine is used as a complementary therapy, and the demand for it is increasing [3,4,5]. This cultural knowledge is under threat of extinction because it is limited to a small portion of society, mostly residents in remote regions, and because of the degradation of the local ecosystems [6]. 22 of aged communities in isolated rural areas, for whom the use of folk medicines is very relevant, but of folk systematization medicines is very but where systematization ofinformation the associated where ofrelevant, the associated ethnopharmacological hasethnopharmacological not been undertaken.
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