Ethnobotany of the Alt Emporda region (Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula) Plants used in human traditional medicine

Ethnopharmacological relevance: This paper provides significant ethnobotanical information on pharmaceutical plant uses from a tourist and industrialised region, where some degree of acculturation exists, so that there is urgency in recording such data. Aim of the study: To collect, analyze and evaluate the ethnobotanical knowledge about medicinal plants in a north-eastern Iberian region (Alt Emporda, 1358 km(2), 129,160 inhabitants). Methodology: We performed 101 semi-structured interviews with 178 informants (mean age 69; 71% women, 29% men), identified the plant taxa reported and analyzed the results, comparing them with those from other territories. Results: The informants reported data on 518 species. Of these, 335, belonging to 80 botanical families, were claimed as medicinal. This work is focused on human medicinal plant uses, which represent 98% of the pharmaceutical uses (3581 out of 3643 use reports). Around 800 medicinal uses, concerning 200 species, have not, or have very rarely been cited as medicinal; of these, 32 uses of 30 species have been reported by three or more independent informants. Conclusions: The folk knowledge about medicinal plant use is still alive in the studied region, and a number of scarcely reported plant uses has been detected, some of them with promising phytotherapeutical applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.