Ethnobotany

All species are unique in their form and biochemistry, and all are potentially useful to people as sources of food, medicine, or materials. As we will see below, however, only a relatively few species are being widely used in these ways. This suggests that there are enormous opportunities of "undiscovered" uses of plants and other organisms.

There are about 255,000 species of plants, including 16,600 species of bryophytes (liverworts and mosses; phylum Bryophyta), 1,000 of club mosses, quillworts, and horsetails (Lycophyta and Sphenophyta), 12,000 of ferns (Pterophyta), 550 of conifers (Coniferophyta), and 235,000 of flowering plants (Anthophyta). Although fungi and algae are not plants, ethnobotanists also study their use. There are about 37,000 species of fungi, and 1,500 species of larger algae (such as seaweeds). These numbers refer only to those species that have been officially named by biologists there is also a huge number of species that have not yet been "discovered" by these scientists. Most of these undescribed species inhabit poorly known ecosystems, such as tropical rainforests. In many cases, however, they are well known to indigenous people, and are sometimes used by them as valuable resources. A major goal of ethnobotany is to examine the utilization of local species of plants by indigenous people, to see whether these uses might be exploited more generally in the larger economy.