Dominican Medicinal Plants: A Guide for Health Care Providers

traditional use and available biomedical data on safety and efficacy. “INV” or “needs more investigation”
means that there is insufficient evidence to support the clinical use of the particular plant and more
research is needed to make a recommendation. “TOX” or “toxic” means that the plant has shown
significant toxic effects in biomedical studies and is therefore not recommended for human use.
In addition to print and electronic publications, TRAMIL has made this information on medicinal
plants available to the public through an online database, which was consulted for information on
medicinal plants included in the present volume. This database is a valuable resource for those interested
in further study on Caribbean medicinal plants: http://www.funredes.org/tramil/. The most recent
TRAMIL publication, the Caribbean Herbal Pharmacopoeia, Second Edition, is an excellent reference
for physicians and clinicians who provide health care to patients from Latin American and Caribbean
countries. It is currently printed in Spanish and published in English and French as an electronic book on
CD-ROM. Please refer to the above website for more details.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
To provide easy-to-use and detailed information about Dominican medicinal uses of herbal remedies
along with a review of the scientific literature on their safety and efficacy, this book uses two different
formats for presenting medicinal plant information: a “Quick Guide” (Part 2) and “Medicinal Plant
Profiles” (Part 3). For a brief summary of the clinically relevant information on a particular plant, consult
Part 2: “A Quick Guide to Home Remedies” by searching for the common name of the plant.
Information in this section is organized alphabetically by Spanish or English common name. For more
detailed information about medicinal plants, including botanical descriptions, photographs or illustrations,
indications and usage (if available) and references cited, see Part 3: “Medicinal Plant Profiles.”
Entries are arranged in alphabetical order according to the Spanish common name most
frequently used by Dominicans in New York City based on previous and ongoing ethnobotanical and
ethnomedical fieldwork (Balick et al. 2000, Ososki et al. 2002, Vandebroek et al. 2007, Vandebroek et al.
2008, Yukes et al. 2003) and current research with healers and herbal medicine specialists. In this section,
each medicinal plant profile contains the following information organized according to the headings and
subheadings listed in the table below. Main headings are indicated in small caps font and subheadings are
italicized.
Heading
SPANISH COMMON
NAME
Note
OTHER COMMON
NAMES
SCIENTIFIC NAME
Explanation
The most widely used Spanish common name for each plant is provided as the
title for the entry. Dominican Spanish plant names are based on ethnobotanical
fieldwork with immigrants from the Dominican Republic in New York City.
If the same plant species has more than one common name, or if more than one
plant species is referred to by the same common name, an explanation is provided
as a “Note” below the Latin name.
Other Spanish and English common names, besides the one most frequently
reported for that species, are listed.
The Latin binomial for the plant (genus and species) is provided. Botanical
synonyms (other accepted scientific names that are used widely in the literature),
are listed when appropriate. The Latin name of the plant family to which each
species belongs is designated in brackets, and the corresponding common name
for the family is included in parentheses. For an explanation of naming
conventions and plant identification, see “A Note on Botanical Nomenclature”
at the end of this section.
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