User:Constantine III/sandbox

Notes

Richard Evans Schultes, often refereed to as the "father of ethnobotany", explained the discipline in this way:

Ethnobotany simply means [...] investigating plants used by primitive societies in various parts of the world.

Since the time of Schultes, the field of ethnobotany has grown from simply acquiring ethnobotanical knowledge to that of applying it to a modern society, primarily in the form of pharmaceuticals.

has expanded to include not only primitive or native peoples, and not only a utilitarian relationship, but also the relationship between people and plants in the modern setting, incorporating cognitive, ecological, and symbolic aspects.

The idea of ethnobotany was first proposed by the early 20th century botanist John William Harshberger. While Harberger did preform ethnobotanical research extensively, including in areas such as North Africa, Mexico, Scandinavia, and Pennsylvania, it was not until Richard Evans Schultes began his trips into the Amazon that ethnobotany become a more well known science.. However, the practice of ethnobotany is thought to have much earlier origins in the first century AD when a Greek physician by the name of Pedanius Dioscorides wrote an extensive botanical text detailing the medical and cullinary properties of "over 600 mediteranian plants" named De Materia Medica. Historians note that Dioscorides wrote about traveling often throughout the Roman empire, including regions such as "Greece, Crete, Egypt, and Petra," and in doing so obtained substantial knowledge about the local plants and their useful properties. Ethnobotany saw an explosion in Europe once the New World was discovered. A substantial influx of new plants came into Europe, including crops such as potatos, peanuts, avicados, and tomatoes. One french explorer in the 16th century, Jacques Cartier, discovered a cure for scurvy (a tea made from boiling the bark of the Sitka Spruce) from the local Iroquoi tribe.