Hipótese da aparência na dinâmica do uso de plantas medicinais na Floresta Nacional do Araripe (Ceará, Nordeste do Brasil)

Abstract

This search analyzes a pharmacopoeia under the optics of the apparency hypothesis. This hypothesis divides plants into apparent and not apparent ones, being the first, in a simple way, perennial woody plants, and the second herbaceous with short life cycle. The apparency hypothesis, when facing the ethnobotany, proposes a positive relationship between the availability of species (usually measured by phytosociological parameters) and its use value for people (calculated through ethnobotanical information). In the community of Caçimbas, settlement which uses plant resources from the Cerrado of the Araripe National Forest (FLONA-Araripe) in the State of Ceará, semi-structured interviews were used to obtain the inventory of medicinal plants, their collection site, diseases for which they are indicated, and calculate its use value, as well as their commercial and practical importance. During the process of botanical collections was set the habit of the plants and they also were featured into woody and non woody ones. The herbaceous habit and the woody plants had the greatest richness of etnoespécies, the herbaceous and non woody ones had the highest practical value, and anthropogenic areas resulted to be the main source of medicinal plants; herbs and trees had equal versatility in the treatment of diseases and they do not differ in regards to the use value. The trees stood out as the most commercially important. In addition, two vegetation plots were held at FLONA to test the relationship between phytosociological parameters and the use and commercial value of the medicinal plants. The commercial and use value were not correlated with the abundance, frequency or ecological importance index of the plants. This study provides information for the development and management plan of the Araripe National Forest, indicating how is the dynamic of use of medicinal plants resources by a nearby community, and allowing the analysis of the role of the FLONA in the cultural, practical and commercial dynamics of use of medicinal plants. This survey provides data on the use of medicinal plants in Brazilian semiarid, arriving with information about the application of the apparency hypothesis in understanding the dynamics of use of these resources.