Ethnobotany

Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of natural and social sciences that studies the relationships between humans and plants. It focuses on traditional knowledge of how plants are used, managed, and perceived in human societies. Ethnobotany integrates knowledge from botany, anthropology, ecology, and chemistry to study plant-related customs across cultures. Researchers in this field document and analyze how different societies use local flora for various purposes, including medicine, food, religious use, intoxicants, building materials, fuels and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", provided an early definition of the discipline: Ethnobotany simply means investigating plants used by primitive societies in various parts of the world. Since Schultes' time, ethnobotany has evolved from primarily documenting traditional plant knowledge to applying this information in modern contexts, particularly in pharmaceutical development. Recent research has also used large historical pharmacopeias as sources for drug discovery. A 2026 study analyzed more than 41,000 traditional Chinese medical recipes. It combined this dataset with nuclear receptor profiling to identify plant fractions capable of modulating glucocorticoid receptor activity, demonstrating how ethnobotanical knowledge can inform modern pharmacological research. The field now addresses complex issues such as intellectual property rights and equitable benefit-sharing arrangements arising from the use of traditional knowledge.