Of Philippine plants and places: an ethnobiological memoir
1999
Gruezo, W. SM. (Philippines Univ. Los Banos, College, Laguna (Philippines). Inst. of Biological Sciences)
Analysis of 800 randomly chosen Philippine place name-entries out of 47,355 original entries and cross-references appearing in the 1945 Gazetteer of the Philippine Islands shows that these place names were derived from 88 local/common names of plants. Determination of equivalent botanical names of these place names shows that 83 species were involved. It is noted that the frequency of usage of a particular common name of plant as place names is directly proportional to the apparent usefulness/economic importance and/or ecological importance and/or ecological impact of plants to the everyday lives of village people. Furthermore, it is shown that the present database of Philippine place names is a rich source of initial information on distribution range, changes in landscape/vegetation, conservation status, and relative abundance or rarity of plants. These sets of readily accessible information can serve as starting points for rapid biological and cultural diversity assessments, particularly of critically-deteriorated ecosystems in the Philippines. Finally, it is recognized that the Philippines being a country with 44 different languages (dialects), one can recover a genuine wealth of ethnobiological memoir in the study of Philippine plants and places
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