What's in a name? Revisiting medicinal and religious plants at an Amazonian market.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In spite of an increasing number of ethnobotanical market surveys in the past decades, few studies compare changes in plant species trade over time. The open-air market Ver-o-Peso (VOP) in Belém, located near the mouth of the Amazon River in the state of Pará, Brazil, is known for its wide variety of medicinal plants. A survey of VOP was published in 1984, but it remains unknown to what extent its botanical composition changed over 34 years. Furthermore, in northern Brazil, little attention has been given to the origins of the vernacular names of these plants. Our aim is to give an up-to-date overview of the VOP medicinal plant market, concentrating on changes in species composition and vernacular names over time.

Methods

We collected medicinal plants and vernacul

SUBMITTER: Geertsma IP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7866673 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature