Ethnobotanical Observations Research Articles

Observations on the Ethnobotany of Madhya Pradesh

Ethnobotanical observations were recorded during the floristic survey carried out in Madhya Pradesh for a period of over seven years. The interesting folk-uses, covering eighty eight species of vascular plants which are not recorded in the important published literature, are presented in the paper.

Studies on the Ethnobotany of Orissa

The paper presents the ethnobotanical observations on 81 species which were recorded during authors' survey in Orissa State for over four years. A number of interesting uses for antifertility, medicine, fibre, food etc. are reported, many of which have been found new on comparison with the important published literature on the medicinal and economic plants of the country.

Contribution à L’identification Des Produits Forestiers Non Ligneux Au Maniema/chefferie Des Bangengele : Plantes Alimentaire Sauvages

This study, conducted in 5 groups (Bangengele Chiefdom) on the outskirts of the Lomami National Park, aims to identify wild food plants. The data collection method is based on collective ethnobotanical observations and interviews. Seventy-five constituted the size of our sample over our entire study area. Thirty-seven edible plant species have been listed. The organs and products used are mainly fruits (68%), leaves (16%), tubers (8%), bark (3%), root (3%).The wild edible plants inventoried are found in forest, savannah and fallow land, but with a predominance in the forest environment. In addition, the biological type analysis carried out on all the plants harvested highlights the presence of trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants and lianas. But we see that woody species trees are more represented with 45.94% followed by lianas with 24% then herbaceous at 18.91% often present in the fallow near the different villages and at the end, shrubs are less represented at only 10.81%..The edible wild NWFPs exploited in the Bangengele chiefdom are more intended for self-consumption, only Thirteen species out of the 37 are marketed locally. Most of the products consumed are processed (cooked, grilled or boiled), and the rest are eaten raw

One hundred and fifty years of ethnobotanical studies in North America

Even though the term “ethnobotany” was created and characterized by John Harshberger in 1896, ethnobotanical investigations were conducted more than a quarter of a century earlier. The pivotal publication in the United States of America was issued anonymously in the 1870 Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture of the US government. It marked the shift from the cursory observations on plants used by “native” peoples to a systematic documentation and analysis of plant-people interactions and relationships over time and space; this transition coincided with the expansion of the USA into the western provinces of the North American continent. To attend to the author’s curiosity of plants with cultural significance that he encountered during his field experience with indigenous peoples as well as published literature, Dr. Edward Palmer (1831-1911) produced “Food Products of the North American Indians” for the 1870 report of the Department of Agriculture. This article was the first of 17 publications that he generated based upon his field work, botanical and ethnological specimens, laboratory analyses, and literature from the western provinces of the USA and northern Mexico. After 1892, his contributions were archived in his private files or shared with botanical and anthropological colleagues for their specialized publications. Our contribution provides updated scientific nomenclature of the 124 plants mentioned in his 1871 article as well as examples of Palmer´s ethnobotanical observations. A diachronic comparison between the food plants registered in 1871 and those listed in subsequent ethnobotanical studies suggest that 87% of the plants continued to be consumed into the 20th century.

Traditional wheat cultivation in South-Eastern Anatolia and its comparison to the archaeological context

This study analyzes the wheat farming activities currently carried out by some rural communities in south-eastern Anatolia. The region is in the northern part of the so-called Fertile Crescent, which played a crucial role 10,500 years ago in domestication of wheat, Triticum monococcum L. and Triticum dicoccon (Schrank) Schubl. in particular. Ethnobotanical investigations were conducted between November 2013 and July 2014 in the rural areas of the provinces of Diyarbakir, Mardin, Şirnak and Elazig. All the examined locations were documented at all stages of the wheat cultivation, except for the preparation of soil. Certain similar agricultural techniques between the contemporary villagers and the prehistoric communities were recorded. In particular, in some villages, silos made exclusively with earth, stones and tree branches, the same types of materials also used during the prehistoric period, were documented. It was also demonstrated that there has existed a continuous exchange of seeds even at long distances through specialized harvesters. This exchange has allowed transmission of cultivation techniques, which are thought to have also existed in the prehistoric period. In addition, manual harvesting was also documented. Based on ethnobotanical observations, it is proposed that manual harvesting was also used during the prehistoric period. During the research, it was observed that women were the protagonists at all stages of production of cereals, from sowing to harvest. Hence, it is suggested that women may have played a leading role in agricultural activities during the prehistoric period, starting from the Neolithic.

What Women Know that Men Do Not about Chestnut Trees in Turkey: A Method of Hearing Muted Knowledge

Decades of ethnobotanical observations have shown that knowledge varies significantly according to the identity attributes of participants, such as their religion, occupation, status, income level, geographic origin, and gender. Ethnobiology shares the imperative of all social science disciplines in tailoring gender-responsive methodologies and operating epistemologies. Particularly, researcher identity, performance, and preference for kinds of knowledge may have significant consequences. Here, we present a study centered around an extra effort to engage women's knowledge of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) in Turkey. In Turkey's Black Sea, Marmara, and Aegean regions, we conducted 142 extended ethnobotanical interviews with chestnut-utilizing participants using three distinct protocols: gender-unaddressed, men-only, and women-only. Based on participant contributions, we developed and analyzed a dataset which accounted for total reported uses, chestnut material typologies, direct and indirect plant traits, as well as unique and cultural reports. We compared the findings from these distinct protocols using Correspondence Analysis and two-way Analysis of Variance. Our results show that the knowledge reported by women-only was significantly more diverse than knowledge reported under men-only and gender-unaddressed protocols. This significant difference was most readily attributed to the higher frequency of unique and cultural knowledge shared during women-only interviews. Also, considering the routinely mixed-gender conditions under the gender-unaddressed protocol, our findings suggest that male presence, in any form, can mute, or render inadmissible, women's ethnobotanical testimony. These findings challenge the community consensus model of ethnobotanical knowledge and field methodologies that do not account for in-field gender dynamics. In conclusion, we articulate a way to amplify insights from intersectionality theory using ethnobotanical approaches.

High genetic diversity among and within bitter manioc varieties cultivated in different soil types in Central Amazonia

Although manioc is well adapted to nutrient-poor Oxisols of Amazonia, ethnobotanical observations show that bitter manioc is also frequently cultivated in the highly fertile soils of the floodplains and Amazonian dark earths (ADE) along the middle Madeira River. Because different sets of varieties are grown in each soil type, and there are agronomic similarities between ADE and floodplain varieties, it was hypothesized that varieties grown in ADE and floodplain were more closely related to each other than either is to varieties grown in Oxisols. We tested this hypothesis evaluating the intra-varietal genetic diversity and the genetic relationships among manioc varieties commonly cultivated in Oxisols, ADE and floodplain soils. Genetic results did not agree with ethnobotanical expectation, since the relationships between varieties were variable and most individuals of varieties with the same vernacular name, but grown in ADE and floodplain, were distinct. Although the same vernacular name could not always be associated with genetic similarities, there is still a great amount of variation among the varieties. Many ecological and genetic processes may explain the high genetic diversity and differentiation found for bitter manioc varieties, but all contribute to the maintenance and amplification of genetic diversity within the manioc in Central Amazonia.

The Domestication of Annatto (Bixa orellana) from Bixa urucurana in Amazonia

Annatto (Bixa orellana) is an important colorant domesticated in the Neotropics, although it is not clear where or from which wild populations. We reviewed the available biological, archaeological, and ethnographic information about annatto, and integrated this with our recent ethnobotanical observations of cultivated and non–cultivated populations in order to evaluate the hypothesis that what is classified as Bixa urucurana is the wild ancestor of cultivated annatto, Bixa orellana. Most B. urucurana populations we found in Amazonia occurred in open forests or anthropogenic landscapes, although never cultivated, and always associated with riparian environments. While cultivated annatto always produces abundant pigment, B. urucurana populations that we observed contained variable amounts of pigment, from very little to nearly the amount of cultivated annatto, suggesting gene flow from cultivated to non–cultivated. Bixa urucurana has indehiscent fruits, which indicate changes in dehiscence during annatto domestication, a notable feature rarely found in other tree species. Local residents identified the non–cultivated populations as wild annatto (urucum bravo), and they emphasized their smaller fruits with less pigment, their spontaneous regeneration, their non–use, and that they hybridize with cultivated annatto. Ethnography identified the symbolic importance of annatto, but an explicit mention of origin only comes from southern Amazonia. Although the oldest annatto archaeological record came from the Caribbean, domestication occurred in northern South America, since B. urucurana does not occur in the Caribbean. Traditional ecological knowledge and morphology identified the close relationship between B. urucurana (never cultivated) and B. orellana (always cultivated). Evidence reported here strongly supports Kuntze’s (1925) suggestion that Bixa urucurana Willd. is a variety of B. orellana L., thus identifying the wild ancestor of cultivated annatto.

Sites on the landscape: Paleoenvironmental context of late Pleistocene archaeological sites from the Lake Victoria basin, equatorial East Africa

Open-air archaeological sites record only a small fraction of the behavioral traces of mobile forager populations. Whereas caves and rockshelters were often occupied at least in part for protection from the elements, the reasons why human foragers occupied other places on the landscape (however briefly) are varied and not always readily recoverable. We develop a framework for interpreting human use of the landscape and modeling occupation of open-air sites using the archaeological and paleoenvironmental record of Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites from Rusinga and Mfangano Islands, located near the eastern margin of Lake Victoria. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions using fossil faunas suggest an arid grassland setting unlike the present. Paleoecological modeling of the habitats of extant and extinct bovids, combined with GIS-based reconstructions of lake level change, indicate that human occupation of these sites coincided with substantial declines in the level of Lake Victoria. During this time, both Rusinga and Mfangano would have been connected to the mainland and represented local topographic highs within an extensive grassland. Geological, ecological, and ethnobotanical observations suggest that these topographic high points would likely have been important sources of stone raw material, fresh water, and a variety of plant resources for food, fuel, and other purposes. In contrast, the grassy lowland plains were probably exploited primarily as a source of large game, which included numerous species of large gregarious grazers, several of which may have followed now extinct migration routes.

Genetic structure of traditional varieties of bitter manioc in three soils in Central Amazonia

Manioc is the most important food crop that originated in Amazonia. Many studies have increased our understanding of its evolutionary dynamics under cultivation. However, most of them focused on manioc cultivation in environments with low soil fertility, generally Oxisols. Recent ethnobotanical observations showed that bitter manioc also performs well in high fertility soils, such as Amazonian dark earths (ADE) and the floodplain. We used 10 microsatellite loci to investigate the genetic diversity and structure of bitter manioc varieties grown in different soil types in communities of smallholder farmers along the middle Madeira River in Central Amazonia. The genetic diversity of some sweet varieties and seedlings was also evaluated. Adult individuals showed higher levels of genetic diversity and smaller inbreeding coefficients (A ( R ) = 5.52, H ( O ) = 0.576, f = 0.086) than seedlings (A ( R ) = 4.39, H ( O ) = 0.421, f = 0.242). Bitter manioc varieties from the floodplain showed higher levels of genetic diversity (A ( R ) = 5.19, H ( O ) = 0.606) than those from ADE (A ( R ) = 4.45, H ( O ) = 0.538) and from Oxisols (A ( R ) = 4.15, H ( O ) = 0.559). The varieties grown in the floodplain were strongly differentiated from the varieties grown in Oxisols (F ( ST ) = 0.093) and ADE (F ( ST ) = 0.108), suggesting important genetic structuring among varieties grown in the floodplain and upland soils (ADE and Oxisols). This is the first time that genetic divergence of bitter manioc varieties in cultivation in different Amazonian soils in a small geographic area is reported.

Ethno-botany of the tribals of Koraput district of Orissa

This paper deals with the ethno-botanical observations of the tribals of Koraput district of Orissa. 28 species of plants and their mode of usage are mentioned.

Ethnobotanical observations on some Orchids of Andhra Pradesh

Ethnobotanical studies were carried out during 1997-2000 in some parts of Andhra Pradesh, India. This has resulted in the recording of 10 orchids used by the tribes.

Lutte contre les insectes phytophages par les plantes aromatiques et leurs molécules allélochimiques

Summary Some ethnobotanical observations show that aromatic plants are used as traditional protectants of leguminosae seeds to avoid beetles attacks in southwestern France. The efficiency of this method was tested in laboratory. Aromatic plants present a double insecticidal effect: by direct toxicity on adults and also inhibition of the reproduction. The most efficient plants belong to Labiatae family. The insecticidal effect of water extracted and residual botanicals were tested. Several allelochemicals, especially monoterpenes and polyphenols, synthetized by the plants' secondary metabolism, are involved in this toxicity. The toxic ecochemical activity of these compounds could be considered as alternative or complementary method to classical pesticides for a better insect pest management.

Discovery of Highly Sweet Compounds from Natural Sources

Sucrose, the most widely used sweetener globally, is of plant origin. In addition, a number of other plant constituents are employed as dietary sucrose substitutes in one or more countries, including the diterpenoid, stevioside, the triterpenoid, glycyrrhizin, and the protein, thaumatin. Accordingly, there has been much interest in discovering further examples of potently sweet compounds of natural origin, for potential use in foods, beverages, and medicines. Approximately 75 plant-derived compounds are presently known, mainly representative of the flavonoid, proanthocyandin, protein, steroidal saponin, and terpenoid chemotypes.In our program directed towards the elucidation of further highly sweet molecules from plants, candidate sweet-tasting plants for laboratory investigation are obtained from ethnobotanical observations in the field or in the existing literature. Examples of novel sweet-tasting compounds obtained so far are the sesquiterpenoids, hernandulcin and 4beta-hydroxyhemandulcin; the triterpe...

Ethnobotanical observations in the Ladakh Region of Northern Jammu and Kashmir state, India

A field trip was undertaken in Ladakh, the northernmost frontier of Jammu and Kashmir State, India. A collection of plants was made from this remote trans-Himalayan region at an altitude ranging from 3000 to 5500 m. Local people were contacted for the local names and uses of plants growing there. They are used as vegetables, in ceremonial observation, in material culture, in personal hygiene, and as fodder or suspected stock poison.

Ethnobotanical observations from cabecar and guaymí settlements in central america

Ethnobotanical information was collected and the degree of acculturation was estimated for 3 Indian groups: 1) the Guaymi near Soloy, Panama, 2) the Guaymi near San Vito, Costa Rica, and 3) the Cabecar in the Telire Reserve, Costa Rica. In both Guaymi settlements, the introduction of cattle, cacao, and coffee had altered traditional agricultural systems. Also, the availability of modern agricultural seeds had reduced the planting frequency of indigenous crop varieties. In comparison, the Cabecar agricultural traditions in the isolated Telire Reserve remain essentially intact. of the persons interviewed, the Telire inhabitants were more willing to discuss and were more knowledgeable of native plant uses, especially medicinal uses, than either Guaymi group. Expeditions to these areas indicated that much ethnobotanical information remains undocumented, especially in the Telire Reserve, and that continual acculturation pressures leave little time to achieve complete documentation.

Ethnobotany in the Puuc, Yucatan

Ethnobotanical observations made in 4 weeks during the summer of 1970 are reported. Cooperation of a number of students participating in a University of Alabama summer class made the collection of information more complete, because the students lived in Ticul where many of the observations were made.

Food plants in a Mexican market

1. A list has been compiled of the species of food and container plants found in the market at Tehuacan, Puebla, Mexico, during a 10-day period in March, 1962. The list comprises 83 species; 56% are New World and 42% Old World, while 2% are common to the tropics of both hemispheres. About 28% of the total number of species are thought to be Mexican endemics. 2. The extensive use made of native food plants suggests that the people of the Tehuacan Valley rely heavily on this resource as a supplement to their dietary regimes. 3. Mexican markets may be utilized as a tool to trace the history of cultivated plants. Ethnobotanical observations suggest that some of the plants found in the market today are retentions from earlier civilizations. This argument is illustrated by a comparison of the cultivatedCucurbita from caves in the Tehuacan Valley with the cultivars found in the market at the present time.