Biodiversity of medicinal plants from Northwestern Argentina. I International Symposium on Medicinal, Aromatic and Nutraceutical Plant from Mountainous Areas

ETCHEVERRY ANGELA1; YÁÑEZ CAROLINA1; LÓPEZ-SPAHR DIEGO1; GÓMEZ CARLOS2; FIGUEROA-FLEMING TRINIDAD1 AND ALEMÁN MERCEDES

Saas Fee

Simposio; First International Symposium on Medicinal, Aromatic and; 2011

Biodiversity of medicinal plants from Northwestern Argentina Angela Etcheverry1, Carolina Yáñez1, Diego López-Spahr1, Carlos Gómez2, Trinidad Figueroa-Fleming1, Mercedes Alemán11, Carolina Yáñez1, Diego López-Spahr1, Carlos Gómez2, Trinidad Figueroa-Fleming1, Mercedes Alemán12, Trinidad Figueroa-Fleming1, Mercedes Alemán1 1Catedra de Botánica, Laboratorio de Biología Reproductiva, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Salta, Avenida Bolivia 5150, 4400 Salta, Argentina.Catedra de Botánica, Laboratorio de Biología Reproductiva, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Salta, Avenida Bolivia 5150, 4400 Salta, Argentina. 2Laboratorio de Microscopia Electrónica de Barrido (LASEM), Universidad Nacional de Salta, Avenida Bolivia 5150, 4400 Salta, Argentina.Laboratorio de Microscopia Electrónica de Barrido (LASEM), Universidad Nacional de Salta, Avenida Bolivia 5150, 4400 Salta, Argentina. Argentina is one of the 25 most diverse countries in the world due to their species richness and endemism. A survey was conducted to categorize medicinal weeds found in Salta Province, which has the highest number of medicinal taxa in the country. We found that Dicots constitutes 92.1%, with 76 families and 258 genera. Asteraceae was the family with the largest number of used taxa (24.55% of the total medicinal plants), followed by Fabaceae (9.02%), Solanaceae (7.67%), Verbenaceae (6.65%) and Lamiaceae (5.63%). Monocots are represented by 10 families and 26 genera, in contrast to 65 families and 232 genera for Dicots plants. These taxa are still used by several ethnic groups from Northwestern Argentina for the prevention and relief of medical disorders. The medicinal species registered in this review, which represent near the 52% of the total medicinal Argentinean flora, demonstrate that Salta province represents an important source of promising plants.