Plants for veterinary use in the Montaña Palentina region (Palencia, Spain)

Abstract

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.