Medicinal plants used by “ Passo da Ilha ” rural community in the city of Pato Branco , southern Brazil

The scope of this work was to rescue and document the traditional knowledge regarding the medicinal plants used by Passo da Ilha rural community, in Pato Branco, Paraná State, Southern Brazil (26◦11′ S, 52◦36′ W and 760 m high). Structured interviews were made in field research with 16 informants who had the traditional knowledge about medicinal plants. The research was carried out from October to December 2000. The plants were collected in the field, identified and their vouchers were housed at the Herbarium “Irina Delanova De Gemtchjnicov” (BOTU) of São Paulo State University, in Botucatu. A total of 47 botanical families and 114 species of medicinal plants were identified. These plants were suitable for more than 30 different medicinal uses. The residents are mainly of European descent, which justify the presence of many exotic plants. The knowledge on how to use medicinal plants properly is held mainly by the females, and decreases in the newer generations, denoting “cultural erosion” in progress.


INTRODUCTION
The use of medicinal plants and their derived forms have produced the basis of the therapeutics through the centuries.With the Chemistry evolution, starting from the 19 th century, the way in which plants were used changed: from the direct use of these plants alone or mixed to the artificial reproduction of isolated active substances through active molecules.As a consequence, the plants that form these substances were considered to be less important.
Therefore, the relative knowledge of the medici-of this, most of the world's population has little to conventional medical care -which relies on t scription of synthetic medication that is usually pensive for them.In this sense, a considerable tional difficulty is the limited availability of sy medications for the poorer populations in the g ment health service.One of the viable and inexp alternatives to access medication would be the medicinal plants and their mixtures by the comm as a complementary form of therapeutics.Most p tions present high cultural attachment to their ow "main" -2009/10/1 -13:52 -page 692 -#2 692 JOSÉ A. MARCHESE et al.
tional uses of the plants in the communities (Farnsworth et al. 1985, Farnsworth 1988).
According to Farnsworth et al. (1985), and Elizabetsky (1991,2000), a fairly high percentage of useful plant-derived drugs was discovered as a result of scientific research of well-known plants used in traditional medicine, and the authors have concluded that this is a good approach for discovering other useful drugs derived from plants.
The scope of this work was to rescue and document the traditional knowledge regarding the medicinal plants used by the population of the rural community called "Passo da Ilha" in Pato Branco, Paraná State, Brazil.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
"Passo da Ilha" rural community in Pato Branco, Paraná State, Brazil, (26 • 11 S; 52 • 36 W) (Fig. 1), is mainly composed by small properties where subsistence agriculture is practiced.The first objective of this work was to have discussions in informal meetings with the community, so that they understand and allow the activities that would be carried out.The ethnobotanical survey was conducted by structured interviews with 16 informants who had the knowledge of medicinal plants usage in their families (Martin 1995, Alexiades 1996).The interviews were carried out from October to December 2000.
The plants were collected in field, pressed and labeled (Martin 1995, Ming 1995, Alexiades 1996).Plant species were identified and voucher specimens housed at the Herbarium "Irina Delanova De Gemtchjnicov" (BOTU) of São Paulo State University in Botucatu.For protection purposes, regarding the genetic resources and the traditional knowledge of medicinal use of these plants by the community, no information related to medicinal use was reported.This publication option is in agreement with other researcher's thoughts (Laird and Kate 2002) and we found it to be the more ethical form to communicate the results in ethnobotanical survey.
ilies were Asteraceae and Lamiaceae, with 20 and 16 species, respectively (Table I).These data agree with those of Dorigoni et al. (2001) and Garlet and Irgang (2001), in ethnobotanical studies that were carried out in the South of Brazil, where the dominant species was Asteracea, followed by Lamiaceae.The high number of species mentioned for medicinal use is in contrast with the few informants interviewed ( 16), which shows a great knowledge of medicinal plants mainly by elderly people.These numbers reflect the value of the traditional knowledge kept by the elderly people from communities and their importance to both cultural and biological conservation (Heinrich et al. 1998, Amorozo 2002, Monteiro et al. 2006).
The medicinal plants were suitable for more than 30 different medicinal uses, predominantly for respiratory diseases and stomachic diseases, with 17.22% (57 citations) and 9.97% (33 citations), respectively (Table II).These data agree with those of Garlet and Irgang (2001) and Marodin and Baptista (2001) who found similar results in ethnobotanical studies that were carried out in the South of Brazil and in the West of Brazil by Amorozo (2002), where respiratory and stomachic diseases are the two main health problems.The cold and wet weather in winter could worsen the health conditions of the inhabitants in most parts of Paraná State and affect their respiratory conditions.Motomiya et al. (2004), while investigating the use of medicinal plants in Cassilândia -Mato Grosso, Brazil, noticed that the most frequently mentioned plants are those used for stomach, intestine and breathing illness treatment such as flu, bronchitis and cough.Franco and Barros (2006) found that the greatest variety of different medicinal plants was for the control of breathing illnesses, coming to 26.7%, in Esperantina -Piauí, Brazil.
Figure 2 shows that many medicinal species were recurrently mentioned by different informants possibly due to the fact that they are long-standing inhabitants of the locations (Table III) and exchange plants and information.A great number of exotic plants were listed in    The informants' gender and time of living in "Passo da Ilha" rural community, in the city of Pato Branco, Southern Brazil.(Voltolini 1996).

Informants Gender
The question of gender related to the sharing of knowledge shows that the transfer of knowledge through the generations about the use of medicinal plants is of women's responsibility.As a result, it is the mothers and grandmothers' duty to look for some therapeutical resource when a relative is ill (Chrisman 1977).
According to Davim et al. ( 2003), women have been considered the custodians of the family in a dedicated and caring manner for years, assuring good health and a quick recovery in the event of an illness.They have As reported by Monteiro et al. (2006), the ences in knowledge related to gender can be affec cultural oscillations concerning factors such as th homogeneous distribution of medicinal plant know and the generally small native population.
However, in Figure 3 a clear tendency of e of this knowledge is noticed, as the youngest info mentioned a lower number of plants than the olde This tendency shows the need of works about ery and practice of the knowledge of medicinal clearly important in communities that lack thera resources for the combat of illnesses.
Some authors have discussed this issue (Ha et al. 2000, Begossi et al. 2002, Amorozo 2004 the loss of that knowledge could be associated w cultural disconnection of the generations.
All information found in this research, bac the scientific knowledge, was returned to the co nity through educational programs.When the botanical research was finished, a second study "main" -2009/10/1 -13:52 -page 696 -#6

Fig. 2 -
Fig. 2 -Percentages of recurrently mentioned species from different informants during the ethnobotanical survey carried out in "Passo rural community, in the city of Pato Branco, Southern Brazil.

Fig. 3 -
Fig. 3 -The influence of the informants' age on the number of plants mentioned during the ethnobotanical survey carried out in "Passo da Ilha" rural community, in the city of Pato Branco, Southern Brazil.

TABLE I Botanical families and the number of species identified during the ethnobotanical survey carried out in "Passo da Ilha" rural community, in the city of Pato Branco, Southern Brazil.
1 Number of different species found per botanical family.ancestry.Paraná State is one of the Brazilian States that has received waves of European immigrants since end I).These data are similar to those observed by Do et al. (2001), Garlet and Irgang (2001) and Marod