Letter: Weedy healing

From Veerle Van den Eynden

Your article on “doorstep” remedies
(24 March, p 18) reminds me of my own
experiences studying wild edible plants used by traditional farmers in southern
Ecuador. There, too, most plants were collected near houses and fields, leaving
me disappointed that forest patches supposedly rich in biodiversity don’t seem
to be used much for collecting useful plants.

One important consideration is definitely distance: why go far if you can
find the same plant nearby? But another reason, which your article didn’t
mention, is the fact that many so-called “wild” plants are really managed by
people. Farming societies have integrated many useful wild plants into their
agricultural systems.

This may mean that useful plants are tolerated as “weeds” in the fields or
are left when new fields are cleared, whereas other plants are removed. Or
interesting wild plants may be sown or transplanted into gardens or along fields
or roads. This may have happened in the distant past, making it difficult to
distinguish between truly wild plants and plants that people have modified in
some way.

So there tend to be more plants useful to people around farmland than in
wilderness.

Moray, Grampian