Alien woody plants are more versatile than native, but both share similar therapeutic redundancy in South Africa.

ABSTRACT: Understanding why alien plant species are incorporated into the medicinal flora in several local communities is central to invasion biology and ethnobiology. Theories suggest that alien plants are incorporated in local pharmacopoeias because they are more versatile or contribute unique secondary chemistry which make them less therapeutically redundant, or simply because they are locally more abundant than native species. However, a lack of a comprehensive test of these hypotheses limits our understanding of the dynamics of plants knowledge, use and potential implications for invasion. Here, we tested the predictions of several of these hypotheses using a unique dataset on the woody medicinal flora of southern Africa. We found that the size of a plant family predicts the number of medicinal

SUBMITTER: Yessoufou K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8631623 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature