Medical ethnobotany of the Yucatec Maya: Healers' consensus as a quantitative criterion

There is an urgent need to obtain information on the relative importance of a taxon used medicinally as compared to others within the same culture. Th is was achieved through a documentation of the current indigenous medical u ses of 320 species in three Yucatec Maya communities during 18 months of fi eldwork. The 1549 individual reports documented were divided into nine grou ps, which classify indigenous uses The frequency of usage of the individual plants reported was employed in the analysis of the ethnobotanical importa nce of the respective taxa. Species cited more frequently in a group of ind igenous uses are regarded to be of greater ethnobotanical importance than t hose cited only by a few informants. In order to obtain information on poss ible biological, pharmacological and toxicological effects of some particul arly important species, the scientific literature on these taxa was evaluat ed systematically. The study is the basis for phytochemical and pharmacolog ical evaluations of the traditional uses.