Ernaz Altundag

Medicinal Uses of Natural Dye-Yielding Plants in Turkey

PPlants have been grown for natural dyes to produce a wide range of colors.. N Natural dyes become increasingly important these days as synthetic dyes cause serious damage to the environment and have to be replaced. The published records show that Turkey has about 10,000 taxa of higher plants, 145 of which come from 92 genera and 51 families and can be used as dyeing sources of 17 colors. The most common families used for dyeing are Asteraceae, Rosaceae, Lamiaceae, Polygonaceae and Euphorbiaceae, and the dominating genera are Rumex, Anthemis, Euphorbia, and Salvia. Dye plants are of great medicinal value as well and can be used for producing antihelmintic, antiseptic, appetizer, carminative, diuretic, exudative, laxative, sedative and stomachic preparations.

Herbals in Iğdır (Turkey), Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan), and Tabriz (Iran)

Healing properties of plants are known to the humans since ancient times. The use of natural medicines is an important issue. Medicinal plants are used as medicinal herb juices, raw as salad, in brewing, baking, ointment, and so on. This chapter includes data on the medicinal and aromatic plants of Igdir (Turkey), Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan), and Tabriz (Iran), which have borders touching each other and have similar cultures. The main aim has been to analyze the distribution of the traditional medicinal plant knowledge in these three different sociolinguistic regions. The specific aims are to compare the composition and richness of medicinal ethnofloras and explore the factors that explain the variations. A total of 341 naturally distributed taxa belonging to 65 families are used in the traditional medicine in Igdir (Turkey), Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan), and Tabriz (Iran). These belong to the families Asteraceae (63 taxa), Lamiaceae (39 taxa), Apiaceae (24 taxa), Fabaceae (23 taxa), and Rosaceae (23 taxa). These five families constitute 50.44% of the medicinal and aromatic plant species (MAPS) distributed in three neighboring states. Most common taxa among these are Achillea millefolium L. and Cichorium intybus L. (Asteraceae), Glycyrrhiza glabra L. and Melilotus officinalis (L.) Desr. (Fabaceae), Malus sylvestris (L.) Mill. subsp. orientalis (Uglitzkich) Browicz and Rosa canina L. (Rosaceae), Peganum harmala L. (Nitrariaceae), Plantago major L. (Plantaginaceae), and Urtica dioica L. (Urticaceae). The parts commonly used are leaves (100 taxa), followed by the herb (98 taxa), fruit (57 taxa), and root (54 taxa). Common preparations evaluated are decoction (161 taxa), followed by infusion (72 taxa), fresh (54 taxa), and poultice (40 taxa). Locals in the three states generally use herbal remedies for the treatment of digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular, gynecological, skeletal–muscular, ear, nose and throat, and urogenital disorders as well as in dermal, neurological, and psyschological diseases and mouth and tooth and other ailments. A comparison on the basis of MAPS reveals that in all three areas, four taxa are widely distributed and used almost for the same applications: Glycyrrhiza glabra (for digestive and respiratory systems), Malus sylvestris ssp. orientalis (for respiratory system), Rosa canina (for digestive and urogenital systems), and Urtica dioica (for digestive system). The three neighboring states belonging to three countries show several resemblances from cultural and other aspects. These areas seem to embody a great potential for evaluation of MAPS and interesting folk medicine culture.

Halophytes of Southwest Asia

In general, saline and arid environments are poor in species. A total of 728 taxa of halophytes are recorded for SW Asia belonging to 68 families (compared to 117 plant families worldwide). The majority of halophytes belong to the families Chenopodiaceae, Poaceae, Leguminosae (Papiliondeae), Asteraceae and Cyperaceae. Chenopodiaceae has the largest number of species and genera of all families only exceeded by Poaceae which has more genera but fewer species. These numbers are in accordance with those found for halophytes of the world. From the data available, Turkey has the most halophytes (±600 taxa), followed by Pakistan (±361 taxa), Iran ± 350 taxa), Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen (±120 taxa). Halophytes in SW Asia constitute about half the number of halophyte taxa (and families) recorded for the world.