What the Iberian Conquest Bequeathed to Us: The Fruit Trees Introduced in Argentine Subtropic ? Their History and Importance in Present Traditional Medicine

STAMPELLA, PABLO; LAMBARÉ, D. ALEJANDRA; HILGERT, NORMA; POCHETTINO, MARIA LELIA

EVIDENCE-BASED COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Oxford; Año: 2013 vol. 2013 p. 1 - 17

1741-427X

This contribution presents information about the history of introduction, establishment, and local appropriation of Eurasian fruit trees?species and varieties of the genera Prunus and Citrus?from15th century in two rural areas ofNorthernArgentina. Bymeans of an ethnobotanical and ethnohistorical approach, our study was aimed at analysing how this process influenced local medicine and the design of cultural landscape that they are still part of. As a first step, local diversity, knowledge, andmanagement practices of these fruit tree species were surveyed. In a secondmoment, medicinal properties attributed to them were documented. A historical literature was consulted referring to different aspects on introduction of peaches and citric species into America and their uses in the past. The appropriation of these fruit-trees gave place to new applications and a particular status for introduced species that are seen as identitary and contribute to the definition of the communities and daily life landscapes. Besides, these plants, introduced in a relatively short period and with written record, allow the researcher to understand and to design landscape domestication, as a multidimensional result of physical, social, and symbolic environment.