Victoria Poling Decribes the Second Ethnobotanical Trip

Our second trip to Yangjuan was excellent. Most people were busy harvesting buckwheat, so we only had a small group of people spending time at the school with us. My biggest help this time was Vugo, who is Jyjy's daughter (Jyjy is Ma Erzi's younger sister who lives right behind the school). Vugo's little sister Zhazha also came on most of the collecting trips. She is incredibly bright and not only recognized when we collected the same species twice, but also remembered all the names Apu told us.

Total we got over 70 new plants and around 45 had Nuosu names. Few had any use though. Uses included mainly animal feed, a few things for toothache, bug bites and bee stings, and some flowers with edible seeds. Three plants are used in traditional Chinese medicine, but one of them I doubt is the right plant although both Apu and Ma Azha (Ma Laoshi) agreed on the Chinese name.

I also gained a bit of insight into how Apu identifies plants. He looks at the leaves first. Plants with the same leaves have the same name. For instance, there are two plants in the Lamiaceae family that are clearly in different genuses. The flowers are completely different. But the leaves look nearly identical so the plants have the same name. I found this is also true for any little wildflowers where the leaves look like blades of grass. They're all called grass.

Ethnobotany Project
UW-SU in Yangjuan
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