Comparison of Herbarium Label Data and Published Medicinal Use: Herbaria as an Underutilized Source of Ethnobotanical Information

Economic Botany
E N F Souza, J A Hawkins

Abstract

The use of herbarium specimens as vouchers to support ethnobotanical surveys is well established. However, herbaria may be underutilized resources for ethnobotanical research that depends on the analysis of large datasets compiled across multiple sites. Here, we compare two medicinal use datasets, one sourced from published papers and the other from online herbaria to determine whether herbarium and published data are comparable and to what extent herbarium specimens add new data and fill gaps in our knowledge of geographical extent of plant use. Using Brazilian legumes as a case study, we compiled 1400 use reports from 105 publications and 15 Brazilian herbaria. Of the 319 species in 107 genera with cited medicinal uses, 165 (51%) were recorded only in the literature and 55 (17%) only on herbarium labels. Mode of application, plant part used, or therapeutic use was less often documented by herbarium specimen labels (17% with information) than publications (70%). However, medicinal use of 21 of the 128 species known from only one report in the literature was substantiated from independently collected herbarium specimens, and 58 new therapeutic applications, 25 new plant parts, and 16 new modes of application were added for spec...Continue Reading

References

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Nov 20, 2015·Current Biology : CB·Zoë A GoodwinRobert W Scotland

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Citations

Jul 12, 2018·American Journal of Botany·Lillian P HancockErika J Edwards
Feb 14, 2020·Database : the Journal of Biological Databases and Curation·Estevão do Nascimento Fernandes de Souza, Julie A Hawkins
Sep 12, 2018·Nature Plants·Irene Teixidor-ToneuJulie A Hawkins
May 25, 2021·Journal of Ethnopharmacology·William MillikenEimear Nic Lughadha
Jun 10, 2018·American Journal of Botany·Pamela S Soltis
Jun 29, 2021·American Journal of Botany·Ryan A Folk, Carolina M Siniscalchi

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