MEDICINAL plants don’t only lurk deep in primary rainforests. They’re just as
likely to be growing as weeds in roadside ditches and abandoned fields, an
ethnobotanist claims.
John R. Stepp at the University of Georgia in Athens surveyed 208 Highland
Maya people in six communities in Chiapas, Mexico. Rather than wander into the
rainforest when they needed medicine, he found they would often go to a nearby
ditch.
Stepp says the popular idea that the untouched rainforests are a treasure
trove of medicinal plants for indigenous people is wrong. “If there are
medicinal plants in there, no one is using…
