Levantamento etnobotânico e caracterização fitogeográfica de espécies silvestres utilizadas na medicina tradicional na zona rural do município de São Luís Gonzaga do Maranhão-MA

Abstract

The use of medicinal plants is a very common practice in Maranhão. Evidenced by several ethnobotanical studies. Mostly, the inclusion criterion on the part of the research is based on the choice of cultivated plants however the number of researches aiming to describe the use of wild plants, found freely in anthropized areas or not, growing and reproducing without human interference is scarce. This wild flora is quite evident in the state when analyzing the phytogeographic domains, which consolidate the diversification of the vegetal dynamics in the Maranhão territory, which define specific morphoclimatic characteristics for each mesoregion, microregion, and consequently, each municipality inserted in it, as is the case of São Luís Gonzaga do Maranhão. Therefore, in the present study, we sought to align data referring to two approaches: ethnobotanical survey and phytogeographic characterization, the having as object of study wild medicinal plants, used by the rural population of Gonzaga. The social and demographic data of the 90 interviewees showed a significant predominance of females in the research in the adult age group, with education limited to lower elementary school and with an income of less than one minimum wage. With regard to knowledge, it was categorized as traditional, in which the leaves were the most used parts, mostly in the form of tea preparation, indicated for common ailments, such as inflammation and the flu. The context in which the main plants inserted in the region evidenced the use of 19 species used, belonging to 19 genera and encompassed in 14 families. The chanana (Turnera subulata Sm.), brush-of-the-mush (Emilia sonchifolia (L.) DC.) and stonebreaker (Phyllanthus niruri L.), were plants highlighted as the most cited in the sample area of the three villages. These three species have similar autoecological characteristics with habit, biological spectrum, in addition to having a pantropical biogeographical distribution