Instructor: Rudolf Schmid, 1098 LSB

Grading: Pass/Not pass

Meeting time: Thursday 9:00-10:00, room 5192 LSB

The literature on "people and plants" is widely scattered amongst several fields: botany, biology, agriculture, anthropology, history, and medicine.
        Plants are directly or indirectly vital to all forms of animal life, including humans. The study of human uses of plants has generally gone under the rubric of economic botany. Topics might include the history and production of coffee, tea, cacao (the source of cocoa and chocolate), corn, and similar crop plants. The emphasis here is often from an historical and/or especially agricultural perspective. The use of plants by indigenous peoples is generally called ethnobotany. Examples might be the use of pine or cedar by prehistoric and historic Indians of North America or the use of certain palms in housing by native Pacific Islanders. Medical botany involves the use of plants in folk medicine or modern medicine. Two examples that have received much attention in recent years are taxol derived from the yew tree Taxus brevifolia and used to treat breast cancer, and Ginkgo biloba derived from the tree of the same name and used as an apparent memory enhancer. Of course, many herbs and spices used nowadays for culinary purposes have had medical or presumed medical applications in earlier times.

The course will involve several lectures and mostly readings and discussions on topics selected by the participants. Any topic is fair game, as long as it deals substantially with a plant or with plants. Students will be required to assign several readings on a topic and to lead an informal discussion of that topic. Active participation in all the discussions will be expected of all students.

Sample references (these may or may not be relevant to actual discussions in this seminar):

• Alexiades, M. N. (ed., assist. by J. W. Sheldon). 1996. Selected guidelines for ethnobotanical research: A field manual. The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx (series: Advances in economic botany, vol. 10).
• Balick, M. J. & Cox, P. A. 1996. Plants, people, and culture: The science of ethnobotany. Scientific American Library, New York (Scientific American library series, no. 60).
• Beck, B. M. 1994. Ethnobotany of the California Indians. Vol. 1. A bibliography and index. Koeltz Scientific Books  USA, Champaign. Strike, S. S. 1994. Idem. Vol. 2. Aboriginal uses of California's indigenous plants. Ibid.
• Dunmire, W. W. & Tierney, G. D. 1997. Wild plants and native peoples of the Four Corners. Museum of New  Mexico Press, Sante Fe.
• Economic botany: Devoted to past, present, and future uses of plants by people, volumes 1-53 (1947-1999).
• Martin, G. J. 1995. Ethnobotany: A methods manual. Chapman and Hall, London (series: 'People and plants'  conservation manuals, vol. 1).
• Moerman, D. E. 1998. Native American ethnobotany. Timber Press, Portland.
• Neuwinger, H. D. 1996. African ethnobotany: Poisons and drugs: Chemistry – pharmacology – toxicology. Trans. from the Ger. by A. Porter & the author. Chapman & Hall, London.
• Prance, G. T.; Chadwick, D J. & Marsh, J (ed.). 1994. Ethnobotany and the search for new drugs. John Wiley &  Sons, Chichester (series: Ciba Foundation symposium, 185).
• Rea, A. M. 1997. At the desert's green edge: An ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima. Linguistic consultant C. Cassa. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
• Smith, H. I. 1997. Ethnobotany of the Gitksan Indians of British Columbia. Ed., annot., and expanded by B. D. Compton, B. Rigsby & M.-L. Tarpent. Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull (Mercury series, unnum.; Canadian Ethnology Service Paper, no. 132).

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Last revised: Sept 2002