Abstract
Leguminosae (legumes) are one of the largest plant families. They are widely used for a variety of purposes by people around the world and include many important cultivated economic food crops. On local scales, legumes are commonly used by various ethnic groups. However, the data are incomplete and scattered, not least in Thailand. We found that species of legumes were important in Karen communities, so we decided to investigate in detail the traditional knowledge of legumes on a local scale among Karen people in northern Thailand. We interviewed six herbalists and eighty-four nonherbalist informants in three Karen villages in Chiang Mai province about their use of legumes, and about the local names for the species, using semistructured interviews. A total of 83 legumes species (in 45 genera) had 4443 use reports. Five of the 83 legume species had not been reported previously as used in Thailand. Most Karen use reports (43%) of legumes were for food, medicine (36%), and materials (8%), but in term of species more legumes (68 species) were used for medicine than for food (53 species). The legume genera with most used species were Crotalaria and Flemingia each with six species. The most important species are Tamarindus indica (CI = 3.38), Senegalia rugata (CI = 2.39), Glycine max (CI = 1.27) respectively.
Highlights
Leguminosae are the third largest plant family, with approximately 19,400 species [1], and they are found throughout the world in all biomes [2]
For five of the legume species recorded here (Aeschynomene americana L., Crotalaria lejoloba Bartl., Flemingia paniculata Benth., Indigofera hendecaphylla Jacq., and Vigna dalzelliana (Kuntze) Verdc.) we could not find any report of traditional use elsewhere in Thailand [22]
We found that all Crotalaria species in the Karen villages we studied were used for medicinal purposes, which was different from their popular uses at a global level
Summary
Leguminosae (legumes) are the third largest plant family, with approximately 19,400 species [1], and they are found throughout the world in all biomes [2]. In Thailand, this family comprises about 133 genera and 778 species [3,4,5]. Legumes include many useful plants, such as crops, vegetables, timber, ornamentals, and medicinal plants [6], and are important as fodder and green manure [7]. Legumes are the second most important crop family following the Poaceae [8]. Legumes are important at the local scale. Many ethnobotanical studies in Thailand have demonstrated that legumes have always had more uses and used species than other plant families [9,10,11]
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