Profound social changes that have occurred in recent decades in rural society have led to the
abandonment of ethno veterinary practices and knowledge, traditionally used to treat and prevent
animal diseases. The main objective of this ethno botanical work is to document the traditional
veterinary uses of plants in the Montaña Palentina region (Palencia, Spain). The data obtained has been
compiled through 139 semi-structured interviews, with a total of 187 people, of whom 97% were over 60
years old. The results of the study collect a total of 61 plant species with veterinary uses, belonging to
32 botanical families, with Asteraceae being the family with the highest representation in terms of
number of species (13), and also in terms of number of records of use (72). There were a total of 202
records of use, distributed in 11 use categories, with the result that the treatment of diseases of the
digestive system had the highest number of recorded uses at 56 (28% of the total), followed by skin and
subcutaneous cell tissue uses at 44 (22% of the total). The plant species with the highest number of
records of use was Gentiana lutea (33), divided between the cure and prevention of diseases of the
digestive (20) and respiratory systems (8), and infectious and parasitic diseases (5). The study may help
to preserve traditional ethno veterinary knowledge in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as promote studies
that consider clinical herbal medicine in animal health care.
