Ethnobotany

Ethnobotany, the study of the interaction between plants and people, with a particular emphasis on traditional tribal cultures. Ethnobotany is a branch of botany, the study of plants, and is closely related to social anthropology, the study of human societies. An important branch of ethnobotany called economic botany focuses on the commercial use of plants, especially in industrialized societies.

The botanical wisdom of tribal shamans, healers, and plant experts often plays a decisive role in demonstrating which plants might be developed as sources of food or medicine. Ethnobotanists focus their studies on the plant lore of tribal peoples for several reasons. These groups are often both highly dependent on and extraordinarily knowledgeable about local plants. They also tend to live in ecosystems, such as tropical rainforests or subtropical deserts, which the outside world poorly understands. Because rapid economic and cultural changes increasingly threaten the traditional lifestyles of these peoples, ethnobotanists seek to record and preserve orally transmitted knowledge in danger of being forgotten.

Ethnobotanical study of traditional plant lore has resulted in many valuable discoveries, ranging from new methods for cultivating crops on arid lands to new medicines for the treatment of disease. Ethnobotanical research has led to the development of many commercial plant-derived drugs. These include quinine for malaria from the South American cinchona tree, podophyllotoxin for cancer from the North American may apple, and physostigmine for glaucoma from the African Strophanthus vine.

Ethnobotany is part of an ancient tradition of seeking information about beneficial plants from other cultures. The rulers of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome encouraged ethnobotanical exploration. In c. ad 60 Roman physician Pedanius Dioscorides published De Materia Medica, a compilation of botanical information gathered on his travels with the Roman armies. This book was used as a medical text until the Middle Ages.

In the 18th century, Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish biologist who invented the modern system of botanical classification, travelled to Saamiland to study the Saami people. He lived with the people as a member of their tribe, wearing their clothes, sharing their food, and studying the plants they used. In the 19th century, British explorer and ethnobotanist Richard Spruce spent 17 years in the Amazon and Andes regions of South America. He discovered hundreds of new plant species and conducted important research on plants used as hallucinogens for religious purposes by Amazonian tribes. Spruce also collected specimens of the cinchona tree that were later used to establish quinine plantations in South East Asia.

Richard Evans Schultes, director emeritus of the Harvard Botanical Museum, has been the dominant figure in ethnobotany in the 20th and 21st centuries. Schultes is an authority on such useful plants as coca, palms, orchids, and rubber. Since the 1930s Schultes has conducted research among Native American tribes in North, Central, and South America. His studies of the mushroom used by the Mazatec peoples of southern Mexico led to the development of the heart drug pindolol (Visken).

Today ethnobotany is in the midst of a renaissance. This revival reflects increasing concern about the disappearance of the rainforests and the tribal cultures inhabiting them. Facing new diseases for which there is no known cure and ancient diseases that have grown resistant to drugs, scientists have broadened the quest for new medicines. This search includes the development of synthetic drugs in the laboratory as well as the discovery of new plant-based medicines. One small company, Shaman Pharmaceuticals, develops new drugs from the plants used by tribal healers. Bristol-Myers Squibb, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, has launched ethnobotanically oriented drug development projects in both Africa and South America. Other large drug manufacturers are expected to follow suit.