Zapotec and Mixe use of tropical habitats for securing medicinal plants inMexico

Medicinal plants are essential in the medical systems of the Mire and Zapot ec. In this study ethno-ecological strategies, employed by the two neighbor ing Indian groups in Mexico, for obtaining medicinal plants are analyzed. T he indigenous classification of the environment is notably different from t he Western one and distinguishes six dissimilar principal "zones" or land u se types. Most ethnomedically important species are cultivated in the "hous e garden" or gathered in the community or its immediate surroundings. The h ouse garden, for example, contributes 31.8% and 26.2% of all medical taxa f or the Mire and Zapotec, respectively. These ethnobotanical data on the ind igenous uses indicate that anthropogenic types of vegetation yield the larg est percentage of medicinal taxa.