Folk medicinal plant mixtures: Establishing a protocol for further studies.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Most ethnobotanical research bases its analyses on individual taxa catalogues and their uses, rather than on mixtures. However, mixtures constitute an important chapter of our different lines of research and they represent a large volume of information. The relevance of these data in folk medicine could be explained as a response to the cure of multicausal etiology diseases or by a possible polyvalent effect of the mixture as opposed to the effect of each taxon alone.

Wild food plants and minor crops in the Ripollès district (Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula): potentialities for developing a local production, consumption and exchange program.

Background: Wild food plants (WFP) have always been consumed by humans, first as the main basis of their food and, since the origins of agriculture, as ingredients of normal diets or as an alternative during situations of scarcity. In contemporary industrialized societies their use is for the most part being abandoned, but they may still play an important role. With the purpose of advancing in the ethnobotanical knowledge of one region of the Catalan Pyrenees, the present study reports the findings of a research project conducted in the Ripollès district (Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula), concerning ethnobotanical knowledge and use of wild and semi-wild vascular plants as foods, along with minor crops.

Beyond food and medicine, but necessary for life, too: other folk plant uses in several territories of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.

Background: Ethnobotanical academic research, particularly in European industrialised countries, has been, and is, mostly focused on folk uses of food and medicinal plants. Nevertheless, other uses, as may well be supposed, account for a significant portion of these folk uses. In the Catalan linguistic domain, a considerable amount of ethnobotanical work has been produced, but to date almost nothing has been published on these other plant uses.

Plants with topical uses in the Ripollès district (Pyrenees, Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula): ethnobotanical survey and pharmacological validation in the literature.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: The skin is the main structure that protects the human body from environmental factors and has, in addition, a relevant relationship to people׳s appearance and beauty. Official medicine and cosmetics have shown interest on elaborating products to protect the dermal system, yet the role of folk medicine is highly unknown in this field. Taking this into account, we performed an ethnobotanical study in a Catalan district of the eastern Pyrenees (northeast Iberian Peninsula), with the purpose of assessing popular plant knowledge and use.

"Tertius gaudens": germplasm exchange networks and agroecological knowledge among home gardeners in the Iberian Peninsula.

Background: The idea that knowledge flows through social networks is implicit in research on traditional knowledge, but researchers have paid scant attention to the role of social networks in shaping its distribution. We bridge those two bodies of research and investigate a) the structure of network of exchange of plant propagation material (germplasm) and b) the relation between a person's centrality in such network and his/her agroecological knowledge.

Methods: We study 10 networks of germplasm exchange (n = 363) in mountain regions of the Iberian Peninsula.

Traditional and alternative natural therapeutic products used in the treatment of respiratory tract infectious diseases in the eastern Catalan Pyrenees (Iberian Peninsula).

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Respiratory tract diseases, including mild troubles, such as the common cold, and also life-threatening ones such as bacterial pneumonia and lung cancer, are very important in terms of mortality, incidence, prevalence and costs. Classical medicine has undoubtedly addressed these illnesses, but the body of knowledge generated by alternative approaches, among which folk medicine plays an important role, is not at all negligible.

Aims Of The Study: In this context, we performed an ethnobotanical study in a Catalan region of the eastern Pyrenees, northeast Iberian Peninsula, in order to assess the popular knowledge on useful plants.

Plant ethnoveterinary practices in two pyrenean territories of catalonia (iberian peninsula) and in two areas of the balearic islands and comparison with ethnobotanical uses in human medicine.

This paper presents the results of an ethnobotanical study centred in veterinarian uses in two Catalan Pyrenean regions (Alt Empordà -AE- and High River Ter Valley -AT-, Iberian peninsula) and two Balearic Islands areas (Formentera -FO- and northeastern Mallorca -MA-). In the areas studied, 97 plant species have been claimed to be useful for veterinary purposes. A total of 306 veterinary use reports have been gathered and analysed.

Ethnobotany of food plants in the high river Ter valley (Pyrenees, Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula): non-crop food vascular plants and crop food plants with medicinal properties.

The present study reports a part of the findings of an ethnobotanical research project conducted in the Catalan region of the high river Ter valley (Iberian Peninsula), concerning the use of wild vascular plants as food and the medicinal uses of both wild and cultivated food plants. We have detected 100 species which are or have been consumed in this region, 83 of which are treated here (the remaining are the cultivated food plants without additional medicinal uses). Some of them, such as Achillea ptarmica subsp.

Studies on pharmaceutical ethnobotany in the high river Ter valley (Pyrenees, Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula).

An ethnobotanical study has been carried out in the high river Ter valley (Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula) a small area located in the eastern Pyrenees, with 294 km(2) and 4526 inhabitants. Through 42 interviews with 60 informants of a mean age of 71.1, 220 species belonging to 71 botanical families were reported, 90.