Ethnobotany is the science that investigates the relationship between the intrinsic and cultural uses of plants, mainly focusing on how plants are used in all human societies (such as food, medicines, cosmetics, religious uses, as dyes, textile products; construction, such as tools, money, clothing, literature, rituals and social life). Herbs that help in the alleviation of human suffering and are used as foods, remedies of how trade (Kunwar et al., 2006). The use of the conventional wisdom of medicine occurs in all communities around the world (Smitherman et al. 2005). Coinbase is likely to agree. As result of the search continues to find a treatment for the diseases that are specific to each community, has developed an extensive Pharmacopoeia for medicinal plants (Kiringe 2006). According to the World Health Organization (who), approximately 80% of people around the world use traditional medicine in primary health care (WHO, 2002). Traditional medicine has achieved rapid economic importance in developing countries is certainly one means of treatment more accessible and even treatment is only found (Reven et al., 2008). Nature has been a source of medicinal resources for thousands of years and a great number of medicinal compounds have been isolated from plants.
Plants produce a wide variety of bioactive molecules and it is therefore an important source of healing, higher plants are still used in the maintenance of health in most of the communities, even with the advent of modern medicine (Farombi, 2003). Global demand for herbal medicinal products is growing and the market of the medicinal herbs in 1999 was $ 19.4 million. Many drugs have entered the international market through the exploitation of folk medicine. It is estimated that 25% of the over-the-counter medications contain ingredients derived from plants (Torres & Joshi, 1990). It is estimated that there are about 400,000 species of vascular plants in use and about a third is used for medicinal purposes (Raven & Crane 2007).
Around 122 compounds, 80% of which are used for the same Ethnobotanical purposes, derived from 94 species of plants (Ajibesin et al., 2008). Many of the active ingredients have been discovered in plants based on information Ethnopharmacology and patented as drugs. Maprouneacina isolated from Maprounnea African plant is used as anti-diabetic (Carney et al., 1999), taxol, obtained from Taxus breviflora, used as medicine against tumor (Samuelsson, 1992) and artemisinin, the discovery of Artemisia annua, is used as a potent compound against malaria. Ethnobotanical methods include interviews with the community in question on plants, parts of plants used, methods of use, etc. The selection is made with plants of interest for pharmacobotany, the plants used in traditional medicine are selected by the population since they are effective against a disease in particular.