The purpose of this application is to organize and publish a Medical Flora of South America to include those plants utilized medically both now and in the retrieving plant records in a DEC VAX 11/750 computer obtained from library, data base, and herbarium sources, as well as from current research in the Upper Amazon Basin. Such a volume at this time is relevant because some of the most important additions to our pharmacopeia have and will continue to come from plants of this region, folk medicines if adequately known could provide an important health care resource in developing countries, and Amerindians have evolved unique therapeutic uses of plants often without invasive procedures that need greater evaluation. All data will be summarized by medical and botanical classifications to aid in identifying similarities between related plants and to highlight for future biomedical purposes those having shared utility and common physiologically active principles. Such data will also be integrated with known phytochemical and pharmacological information from South America and beyond when relevant.
