Study reveals common bush medicine links Common knowledge
Sourcing drugs from traditional medicines, known as
bioprospecting, has been given a boost by a study showing three
geographically-separate cultures using similar plants for
similar medicinal purposes. A team of researchers led by Dr
Julie Hawkins of the University of Reading collated information
on medicinal plant use from New Zealand, Nepal and South Africa,
recording what plants were used to treat what conditions, then
used genetic data to build up a phylogenetic, or family tree of
the samples. The study, published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, also found that closely-related
plants often share medicinal properties. "Our study is unique in
being a phylogenetic analysis of traditionally used plants
spanning whole floras and different cultures," the researchers
write. "We demonstrate shared phylogenetic patterns across the
floras: related plants from these regions are used to treat
medical conditions in the same therapeutic a