Levantamento etnobotânico de plantas medicinais, em área de caatinga no Município de Santa Luzia Paraíba, Brasil.

Abstract

The plants are used for various purposes, and among them, one of their main usage is as a medicament. Ethnobotanical studies have been intensified in order to register the traditional botanical knowledge, particularly related to the use of the resources of flora for therapeutic purposes. Based on this context we performed a survey of medicinal plants used by the residents of the municipality of Santa Luzia, Paraiba. Aiming to identify and catalog the medicinal flora of this region, inserted in the caatinga biome, which suffers from human activities, desertification and improper use of plant resources. The used method was the application of a semi-structured sociocultural (gender, age, education) and environmental (scientific and common name of the indicated species, used part, mode of preparation of remedies and indications) questionnaire to 40 people, with 72.5% female and 27.5% male, age ranged from 17 to 82 years, from July 2012 to August 2013. Resulting in 71 species belonging to 38 botanical families being Fabaceae (8 spp.), Euphorbiaceae (6 spp.), Lamiaceae (6spp.) and Asteraceae (5 spp.) the most representative. When calculated the relative frequency of using the erva cidreira (Lippia Alba (Mill) NEBr.), hortela-grande (Plectranthus amboinicus (Lour.) Spreng.), boldo (Vernonia condensata Baker.) mastruz (Chenopodium ambrosioides L.) , cajueiro (Anacardium occidentale L.), capim santo (Cymbopogon citratus (DC.) Stapf) and hortela miudo (Mentha pulegium L.) had citation frequency > 4%, being the leaves (60, 6%) the most used part and tea (63.6%) as way of preparing home remedies. The family remains the major source of transmission of traditional knowledge.