Conocimiento etnobotánico de plantas comestibles entre los docentes patagónicos: patrones de variación ambiental oeste-este

LADIO A H; MOLARES S; RAPOPORT E

KURTZIANA

Museo Botánico de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

Lugar: Córdoba, Argentina; Año: 2007 vol. 33 p. 141 - 152

0075-7314

Some rural people in Patagonia have good wild plant knowledge of local floras along the West-East gradient. However, it has been found that this knowledge is significantly lower among children than among adults.  The objectives in this study were: to document edible plant knowledge among teachers of Patagonia, and to analyze the interchange of species among West-East environmental gradient. A total of 135 teachers from Trevelin, Esquel, Dolavon, Gaiman, Trelew, Rawson and Puerto Madryn were interviewed by means of structured questionnaires. A total of 108 species, including native species from the Sub-Antarctic forest (11), steppe and monte (14), weedy exotics (23), grown wild exotics (19) and cultivated exotics (36) were cited. In general, plants mentioned by different teachers were more similar between neighbour localities than between distant sites. The native species associated to nearest vegetational types, and the wild exotic species had the most consensus among teachers. Given the fact that ethnobotanical knowledge acquisition occurs during childhood; the role of teachers becomes crucial for the maintenance of this plant wisdom.