A Brief History of Ethnobotany Quiz 3 #1 Exam 1

Ethnobotany goes back in the European intellectual tradition at least to the wanderings of Dioscorides, the greek surgeon who traveled about the Mediterranean area at the behest of Emperor Nero. His De Materia Medica, written in 77AD contained detailed descriptions of the botany and medicinal properties of some 600 plants.

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Dioscorides did what?

Carefully noted the habitats of plants, when and how they were gathered

Which were edible, poisonous, and/or therapeutic

He included in his compilation of recipes and formulae for their use

He also took note of exotic plants-spices in particular- that had significant economic potential

De Historia Stirpium 1542

Leonhart Fuchs

400 plants native not to the mediterranean but to his own Germany.

Historical significance.

Without doubt, Fuchs's herbal was the appearance for the first time of some strange and exotic botanical arrivals from the Americas.

The English naturalist John Ray, who offered the first species concept in 'Methodus Plantarum' (1682), continued in his three volume' Historia Plantarum'(1686-1704)to offer the first systematic treatment of all the plants then known to Europe. Ray studied the plants as living organisms and, having considered the morphology of the entire plant, determined that a species comprised " a set of individuals who give the rise through reproduction to new individuals similar to themselves"

This was a vital conceptualization for it provided all naturalists at the time with a building block from which a revolutionary taxonomic system could be constructed.

None of the above

Species Plantarum Linnaeus

By Carl Linnaeus

Binomial label on each of the 5900 plants known to known to European botanists.

Carl dispatched students to every corner of the globe to obtain new plants for use as foods,textiles, and medicines that would benefit europe.

Linnaeus's students not only brought back enormous quantities of specimens but also accounts of the cultures they had visited, the customs of the inhabitants, and, in particular, the way indigenous people used their plants.

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Two major challenges mark the future of ethnobotany

First, the long-standing task of cataloging what is now known, of documenting which plants are and are not important to a society and of sifting through the immense repositories of folk beliefs for plants that may serve the needs of human societies-all these must continue at an ever-accelerating pace. It is a tiresome yet tragically true admonition that the rate of destruction of biological and cultural diversity, particularly in tropical rain forest areas, promises to rob us within a single generation of the accumulated wisdom of millennia and of our ability to preserve even certain elements of knowledge.

Second, Ethnobotanists must record not only lists of plant uses but a vision of life itself. This is the second and much more difficult task-to understand not just how a specific group of people uses plants but how that group perceives them, how it interprets those perceptions, how those perceptions influence the activities of members of that society, and how those activities, in turn, influence the ambient vegetation and the ecosystem upon which the society depends.

Slash-and-burn(swidden)agriculture,with its cycle of clearing,burning,and planting leading to one or two good crop yields followed seasons of diminishing returns and long periods of regenerative fallow, has long been recognized as the most adaptive means of farming in the lowland tropics.

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A Brief History of Ethnobotany Quiz 3 #1 Exam 1

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