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Abstract Background Ethnobotanical studies in metropolitan areas and urban ethnic markets have grown considerably in recent years as large cities have demonstrated to be significantly rich in biocultural diversity and in driving its evolution, as human populations migrate from one region to another. Urban spaces also represent important places of rich multicultural and multilingual interaction and exchange, where ethnobotany can act as a bridge between research and action. The purpose of this study is to present a case study on how to use ethnobotany in multicultural urban settings by studying people-plant interactions and the larger implications and applications to promote biocultural learning in these areas. Methods We inventoried the botanical composition of fresh and dry products sold in most food stores owned by Chinese immigrants in Fondo, a neighbourhood of Barcelona’s metropolitan area, in Santa Coloma de Gramenet municipality (Barcelonès county, Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula), pharmacologically validating the obtained list with the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. We also participated in multiple dissemination activities and materials (non-academic and academic), along with exchanges with the broader community in relation to this research. Results In total, 103 plants were identified at the species level, pertaining to 88 genera and 46 botanical families. Including the infraspecific level, a total of 113 plant taxa were inventoried. One algal and six fungal species were also recorded, but not included in the analyses. Brassicaceae (12.4%) and Fabaceae (10.6%) were the most predominant families inventoried, followed by Cucurbitaceae (7.1%) and Poaceae (7.1%). Over three-quarters of all the taxa have an Asian origin (76.11%), indicating a high conservation of the use of Asian taxa. Over one-third (36.89%) of the plant parts pertain to species contained in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, showing the relevance of medicinal plants in local stores and the preponderance of Eastern Asian food-medicine continuums. To promote ethnobotanical education programmes, over 50 dissemination activities and educational materials were produced from this study and shared with the local urban community in different fora. Conclusions Further research in these and similar settings can provide significant ethnographic information to better understand anthropological processes and phenomena underlying migration and transculturation that can be used in an umbrella of applications, from adequate nomenclature and labelling of foreign products in local languages to multicultural integration and social cohesion programmes along with educational activities on biocultural topics.

Background: Ethnobotanical studies in metropolitan areas and urban ethnic markets have grown considerably in recent years as large cities have demonstrated to be significantly rich in biocultural diversity and in driving its evolution, as human populations migrate from one region to another. Urban spaces also represent important places of rich multicultural and multilingual interaction and exchange, where ethnobotany can act as a bridge between research and action. The purpose of this study is to present a case study on how to use ethnobotany in multicultural urban settings by studying people-plant interactions and the larger implications and applications to promote biocultural learning in these areas. Methods: We inventoried the botanical composition of fresh and dry products sold in most food stores owned by Chinese immigrants in Fondo, a neighbourhood of Barcelona's metropolitan area, in Santa Coloma de Gramenet municipality (Barcelonès county, Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula), pharmacologically validating the obtained list with the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. We also participated in multiple dissemination activities and materials (non-academic and academic), along with exchanges with the broader community in relation to this research. Results: In total, 103 plants were identified at the species level, pertaining to 88 genera and 46 botanical families. Including the infraspecific level, a total of 113 plant taxa were inventoried. One algal and six fungal species were also recorded, but not included in the analyses. Brassicaceae (12.4%) and Fabaceae (10.6%) were the most predominant families inventoried, followed by Cucurbitaceae (7.1%) and Poaceae (7.1%). Over three-quarters of all the taxa have an Asian origin (76.11%), indicating a high conservation of the use of Asian taxa. Over one-third (36.89%) of the plant parts pertain to species contained in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, showing the relevance of medicinal plants in local stores and the preponderance of Eastern Asian food-medicine continuums. To promote ethnobotanical education programmes, over 50 dissemination activities and educational materials were produced from this study and shared with the local urban community in different fora. Conclusions: Further research in these and similar settings can provide significant ethnographic information to better understand anthropological processes and phenomena underlying migration and transculturation that can be used in an umbrella of applications, from adequate nomenclature and labelling of foreign products in local languages to multicultural integration and social cohesion programmes along with educational activities on biocultural topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research focused on community forestry and the sustainable use of tropical forest resources has been conducted at The New York Botanical Garden for over 30 years. Five of the projects are located in the Neotropics, six are in Southeast Asia, and three are in Tropical Africa; project sites include some of the largest remaining areas of tropical forest in the world, e.g. Amazonia, Borneo, northern Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea. All of the projects have had a training component, several have incorporated both training and the collection of baseline data, and much of the recent work has included training, baseline data collection, and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). The CBNRM initiatives at NYBG are unique because (1) they are based on quantitative inventory and growth data, (2) they are conducted in intact forests as a conservation incentive, and (3) the data collection, management planning, and monitoring activities are conducted by the villagers themselves. Although a variety of different ecological, economic, and social factors can influence the success of a community forestry project, one of the major lessons learned from the NYBG interventions is that management programs specifically tailored to a given community and forest based on a preliminary assessment of the actual supply and demand of forest resources are most effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The beginnings of ethnobotanical investigations, viewed through the prism of time, are deemed to belong to the first explorers and adventurers of the Old Continent. They were the first to bring, from their voyages, the information about use of plants in native populations. However, the 19 century brings the precision, scrutiny and accuracy in research. It was in 1873 that the term "aboriginal botany" was used the first time in academia, and only a few years later the new term "ethno-botany" was introduced and defined. In the course of the twentieth century the interest in ethnobotany begins to rise rapidly and the scientists, besides in the use of plants, are also interested in the manner in which people notice and manage them, as well as in the mutual relation between the human community and plants which they depend on. The major basic focus of this discipline is actually the botanical lore of traditional indigenous peoples. Generations of biologists and anthropologists are trying to learn and study various aspects of the "ethno-scientific knowledge", and to establish and explain the difference between ethnobotanical evidence and the traditional knowledge. Therefore there are nowadays three main approaches in the study of traditional botanical knowledge: utilitarian, cognitive, and ecological approaches. The study of TBK is primarily based on the attempt to understand the traditional use of plants so that in co-operation with scientific knowledge of the Western civilization we could more easily collect and keep the ethnobotanical facts to be realized in various projects as a result of the integration of these Systems. The goals of such projects is to secure the rural development and preservation of traditional cultures, as well as the protection of biodiversity while also helping the Western science in discovering new drugs and raw materials invaluable to this world. Ethnobotany is the science in its infancy but it can offer much to the modem mankind, both in the study of our past and in preservation of its traces in many traditional societies. Our task is to preserve - in co-operation with local populations throughout the world - the precious ethnobotanical material and to make attempts to help the modem man in the eternal struggle for health, time, and life.

The scope of Ethnobotany is to study the relationships between plants and people. The discipline has been growing rapidly in Spain over the last twenty years. Its main objective is to study traditional uses and knowledge of plants. Radical change in life stile and and the relationships intemature have been brought about by modifications to rural societies over the last few decades. Not many years ago knowledge of plants and their uses was essential to settle basic needs of the population. Migration from rural áreas and social and cultural changes have forged a gap between generations that has interrupted communication of this kind of knowledge and loss of a rich heritage. Gathering popular wisdom and traditions, that are an important part of the identity and cultural personality of people, is a priority.

Taking as a starting point the conception that universitary extension, in conjunction with research and teaching, is one of the basis of modern university, we develop practices that relate our researches on applied ethnobotany with teaching-learning process in Economic Botany, and the application of this knowledge to the resolution of everyday problems. We present the results of an experience, devoted to children and teenagers that are hospitalized, that links, through different games, plants of customary use with current wisdoms in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the provisions of educational cooperation policy developed by the Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva (CJB) in Switzerland. It outlines the services offered by the CJB particularly in collecting, documenting, conserving different plant species. It details the coverage of the organization's cooperation policy, which focused on applied ethnobotany and targeted environmental education. An overview of the CJB's conservatory activities is provided.

The conservation of biodiversity within cropped fields, through tolerating low weed populations, would complement un-cropped wildlife refuges and increase the functional diversity of the farmed landscape. These benefits need to be balanced with the risk of lost crop production from weed competition. A simulation model of weed growth and competition was developed and parameterised for 15 autumn germinating weed species common in UK winter wheat fields. The model was validated over 2 years and used to explore possible management options for reconciling the conservation of in-field biodiversity with winter wheat production. The model successfully predicted biomass production and crop yield loss from weed populations sown in two growing seasons. The predicted outcome of weed competition was highly dependent on weather, particularly the period of over winter growth. The model allows the risk associated with the economic weed threshold approach to be effectively managed—providing the control of less competitive broad leaf weeds is delayed until the spring. There were large differences in the model parameters between the species and the hypothesis that weed growth and competition could be modelled on the level of weed functional group was rejected. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We used palm knowledge to understand the interaction between people and the rainforests and the factors that influence this dynamic process. We interviewed 278 informants in 12 villages in the Pastaza and Madidi areas of the western Amazon basin. Together they used 38 different palm species for 38 different uses in six use-categories (food, construction, utensils, ritual, medicine, commercial). Euterpe precatoria, Iriartea deltoidea, and Oenocarpus bataua were best known and were mentioned as useful by 76-72% of the informants in the 12 villages. There was a great variation in number of uses and in how widespread the uses were and five of the 38 useful palms were mentioned by only one informant. Among the socioeconomic factors analyzed, the residence village influenced the informants' knowledge of palms and their uses more than any other factor. Length of education, prosperity and for how long the informant had lived in the village were also positively correlated to how many palms and palm uses were known. Gender differences in informants' knowledge of palm uses were not observed in our data. We suggest, that the high importance of forest products to the livelihood of the villagers, the great variation in the knowledge they possess, and the fact that the differences between villages is so great, are important elements to consider when developing management plans for the sustainable use of the rainforest resources in the western Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incorporation of suitable quantitative methods into ethnobotanical studies enhances the value of the research and the interpretation of the results. Prediction of sample species richness and the use of species accumulation functions have been addressed little in applied ethnobotany. In this paper, incidence-based species richness estimators, species accumulation curves and similarity measures are used to compare and predict species richness, evaluate sampling effort and compare the similarity of species inventories for ethnobotanical data sets derived from the trade in traditional medicine in Johannesburg and Mpumalanga, South Africa. EstimateS was used to compute estimators of species richness (e.g. Jackknife), rarefaction curves, species accumulation curves and complimentarity. Results showed that while the Michaelis--Menten Means estimator appeared to be the best estimator because the curve approached a horizontal asymptote, it was not able to accurately predict species richness for one of the data sets when two of its subsamples were individually tested. Instead, the first-order Jackknife estimator best approximated the known richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herbs are vital sources of drugs from the ancient time holding the scenario of Indian system of medicine. Withania somnifera (L) Dunal (Solanaceae) commonly known as Ashwagandha is an important medicinal herb used in the Ayurvedic and indigenous medicine. The plant is used in the treatment of various diseases and disorders. The present paper enumerates the morphological and ethnobotanical uses of this herbs, which may help the researchers to set their minds for approaching the utility and potency of Withania somnifera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the importance of breadfruit to food security as promoted by botanists. Horticulturist Diane Ragone claims that breadfruit contains many nutrients and the trees are prolific. Ethnobotanist Eve Emshwiller says that breadfruit trees produce more food per hectare than other crops like wheat or rice. Other topics include the need to conserve and reintroduce breadfruit varieties which are being lost, the Breadfruit Institute, and developing recipes for breadfruit.