Contribuição ao estudo das Fabaceae: análise dos relatos botânico-históricos a partir da obra Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (1648).

Abstract

Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, reference work for the natural sciences of Brazil, contains information of species observed by naturalists from the 17th century, including the Fabaceae. In the composition of brazilian flora, the pea family, Fabaceae, is noteworthy for its wealth of species and economic interest. The aim of this research was to rescue the Fabaceae information present in the registry Historia Naturalis Brasiliae of naturalists Piso and Marcgrave, 1648, in order to identify potential resources of brazilian flora, as well as identify the similarities and differences in the knowledge and use of this goup of species nowadays. For that it was made an analysis of the documentary data on the original source, and in its review performed by Pickel, in 2008, entitled Flora of northeastern Brazil. The information collected was organized in database and a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the items were made. It was obtained a total of 51 resources of Fabaceae. Among these, 33 species and two genera presented report of past use and were distributed into four categories, which medicinal stood out (69.23% of citations). In this category, considering the symptoms and diseases cited in the work, "wounds" was the most reported by naturalists (12.1% of citations). Of plants with account of medicinal use, 17 species and one genre showed no contemporary records. A group of 31 species had occurrence data. The analyses presented in this research contribute to expanding the knowledge of the Fabaceae, and to the rescue and knowledge about plants of past centuries, enriching the studies in Botany, in particular, of historical Ethnobotany.