Popular Use, Chemical Composition and Trade of Cerrado's Medicinal Plants (Goiás, Brazil)

Abstract

This survey was done to register information of cerrado's medicinal plants sellers, who trade in downtown Anapolis (Brazil). The information obtained was pertaining to medicinal purposes, the most used portion of the plants, ecological lore and the best selling plants. A cluster analysis was performed to group the plants by medicinal use and by their chemical composition, obtained in the current literature. To verify if differences in chemical compounds correspond to differences in medicinal use, a Mantel test was applied to assess the correlation in those grouping. The results showed a low but significant correlation between medicinal use and chemical composition of the plants, nevertheless, there is still little published information on the pharmacological potential of cerrado's plant. Trade of cerrado's medicinal plants has local economic importance for a low income and illiterate population and the urbanization of the activity caused the loss of some traditional knowledge, like ecological information about the plants. A traveling salesman of medicinal plants (raizeiro) seems to have the most traditional lore, but he was not found to the interview. The excessive use of roots for medicinal purposes can be a threat to cerrado biome coupled with other human pressures in this ecosystem. Traditional knowledge of medicinal plants is endangered as much as the ecosystem that originated it.