Importance de l'identification botanique dans la démarche ethnopharmacologique; cas d'une Bignoniaceae malgache, Perichlaena richardii Baill

Abstract

Ethnobotany shares with ethnopharmacology the study of relations between man and medicinal plants, but is interested in a wider sense in any plant usage by man. These recent concepts go hand in hand with our growing preoccupation for nature protection and cultural heritage. Botany is an essential step in the ethnopharmacological process and botany itself is the reference system. It grants credibility to establish research that follows on from new concepts. Without the rigorous identification of studied plants, all future research that would be applied would become null and void. Likewise, this work aims firstly to justify the interests of a total botanical identification and the place of the herbarium. In the second part, the example of a plant studied at a phytochemical and pharmacological level in a laboratory will be made, selected on the basis of ethnobotanical investigations undertaken in Northern Madagascar: Perichlaena richardii Baili. (Bignoniaceae). © 2005, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.