ETHNOBOTANICAL STUDY ON MEDICINAL HERB MARKET DURING DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL IN PU'ER, YUNNAN, CHINA
To explore the unique cultural and experiential knowledge of the medicated diet culture of the Dragon Boat Festival and summarize the catalogue of the medicinal materials traded on herb market in Pu'er, field experiments were carried out. More than 100 species of medicinal plants were sold on the market and 81 species belonging to 40 families have been identified and inventoried. Information collected included the local names of the medicinal plants, their medicinal uses, preparation methods, medicinal parts and information on whether cultivated or from wild habitats. Pu'er is a platform on which Traditional Chinese Medicine exchanging and communicating with Multi ethnic Medicine about local medicinal plant materials resources associated with traditional utilization knowledge were used. This study will serve as a useful resource for identifying promising plants for future drug discovery efforts. Introduction Duanwu, which is also known as the Dragon Boat Festival (DBF) observed on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, is an ancient festival and celebration of traditional Chinese culture and folk lore that dates back to 300 BC (Zhang et al. 2011) In ancient times, people think that Yin Qi intersects with Yang Qi in lunar May and all things can determine life and death clearly. Lunar May has many taboos, which means ominous and leads people do something to avoid them. People ward off evil during the festival by bathing in flower scented water, wearing herbal sachets, hanging plants such as moxa and calamus over their doors, and drinking realgar wine (Jing 1998, Lee 2010, Yang et al. 2009) The perspective of modern science is that spring intersects with summer in the lunar May, stuffy, damp, and some seasonal diseases gain their popularity (Wang et al. 2010) However, at the same time, most of the herbs are flourishing with good medicinal efficacy (Lee et al. 2010) People especially in minority areas use the knowledge of lunar calendar and climate combined with various medicinal materials to regulate their digestive system and strengthen their health; for instance, locals use chicken stewed with rhizome of Foeniculum vulgare for dispelling cold, relieving pain and regulating the stomach function (Lee 2012) The proverbs "In DBF day, the collected herbs have the best medicinal efficacy" "Every grass can be used as medicine during the DBF" are widely spread in Chinese folk. People consider that eating some plant roots with health care functions during the DBF can eliminate the sick tendency, meanwhile add Yang Qi and raise the healthy tendency of the organism to resist all kinds of diseases and promote health. In order to explore the unique cultural and experiential knowledge of the medicated diet culture of the DBF, the investigation in Pu'er were made. Materials and Methods Pu'er is located in the southwest of Yunnan Province, between 22deg02' 24deg50'N and 99deg09'102deg19'E (Fig. 1) The region's unique location, topography, landforms, large elevation range and obvious vertical climate produced a rich plant diversity of Pu'er, which provide a wealth of *Author for correspondence: College of Ethnomedicine, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu 611137, China.