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Background: Central Myanmar is located in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, and the Bamar people are the main ethnic group, which settled there over 1000 years ago. Despite being the core region of the country, central Myanmar has been ignored in previous ethnobotanical studies. Local healthy foods and knowledge are regarded as treasures for resource development and pharmaceutical drug discovery, and market surveys are a good strategy in ethnobotanical research. Thus, we collected and documented typical vegetables and local knowledge in local markets and then analysed the diversity and local knowledge of these vegetables., Materials and Methods: Observations and interviews were used in the field study, and 10 markets and fairs were selected in central Myanmar. A total of 277 vegetable stalls or shops were visited. We compared the local knowledge we collected with selected important and typical herbal books on traditional Myanmar medicine. Quantitative analysis, including frequency of citation (FC), relative frequency of citation (RFC) and use value (UV), was used to assess the diversity and local knowledge of these vegetables., Results: A total of 132 plant taxa from 47 botanical families and 116 genera were collected. Most (106 taxa, 80.3%) of these vegetables were cited by the informants as functional foods that had health benefits, while others were regarded as merely "good for health". The main health function of the vegetables was treating digestive problems. Sixty-four species were recorded in selected herbal books on traditional Myanmar medicine, and forty-seven taxa were not recorded in these books but were nonetheless used as healthy vegetables by local people. Twenty-eight species of vegetables were collected from wild places., Conclusion: The diversity and local knowledge of healthy vegetables in central Myanmar were rich. Nevertheless, the diversity of wild vegetables was seemingly relatively low. The possible reason was that we counted only the vegetables that were from entirely wild sources as "wild vegetables". The most frequently cited vegetables were commonly cultivated species, which reflects the fact that plants cultivated on a large scale comprise the major source of vegetables. Some lesser known vegetables could reflect the unique food culture of local people, but most of these were cited only a few times by the interviewees, which caused low UV and RFC rankings for them in the league table. In addition, future research should pay more attention to the food safety of these vegetables.

The Shan people of Myanmar live under conditions of longtime social instability and public medical resources inadequate, which tend to strengthen the reliance on local traditional primary healthcare system. The documentation of this kind of resource, however, was rarely and inadequate to support any kind of dynamic trend evaluation. Being an ethnobotanical study, we conducted field survey in the Southern Shan State of Myanmar and aimed to 1) document the local plant species that adopted for primary healthcare purpose, 2) clarify how these species collectively address the broad range of primary medication needs for local people, and 3) lay foundation for dynamic trend evaluation of the role of local medicinal plants under this kind of social and cultural context. Field surveys were conducted with 124 informants in eight villages. We collected 1259 use reports and documented all the plant species used for treating all the mentioned ailment types. The ailments were translated into their emic meaning and then classified into common disease categories. The top ranked and newly recorded plants or ailment types were analyzed based on historical records from the region. Totally 156 plant species were used for treating 91 ailments belonging to 16 disease categories, with skin problems and digestive tract were the top cited diseases, and with Fabaceae and Lamiaceae were the top cited plant families. A total of 19 newly recorded plant species were suggested as new member of Myanmar medicinal plant list. Besides, we filled the gaps (for 24 species) and enriched the types (for 83 species) of applicable ailments for known Myanmar medicinal plants. Our study revealed that the Shan people in Southern Shan State used rich plant species for various therapeutic purposes. Our findings indicate the crucial role of local plant resources for local people's primary healthcare needs and support further study about cultural or regional comparation or historical dynamic trend of the medicinal plants uses in areas facing longtime official or public medical resource inadequate. [Display omitted] • The study revealed the significant role of local medicinal plants and the related knowledge for people who live under longtime conditions of social instability and lacking official medical resources. • Totally 156 plant species for medicinal uses were documented for treating 91 ailments (belong to 16 common disease categories) by Shan people in Southern Shan State. • A total of 19 newly recorded plant species were suggested as new member of Myanmar medicinal plant list. Besides, we filled the gaps (for 24 species) or enriched the types (for 83 species) of applicable ailments for known medicinal plant species in Myanmar. • Fabaceae and Lamiaceae were found as the highest cited plant families for medicinal uses, meanwhile skin and digestive problems were the most frequently cited disease types treated using local medicinal plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnopharmacological relevance A new field of enthnopharmacology has opened, where pharmacological studies draw their attention from the conventional only-medicine approach towards the dietary dimension. The uses of Ficus species in the human diet have been extensively documented by ethnobotanical field surveyors. Overlap commonly exist between the dietary and medicinal selection of Ficus species but not for choices of the plant parts and development stages, which leave a large space for ethnopharmacological study. Aims of the study 1) To review published works on the dietary uses of Ficus species and their food-medicine overlap based on traditional uses, and 2) to spark interest in ethnopharmacological studies on the dietary uses of Ficus species. Materials and methods Data was collected and analyzed from many sources, including published and unpublished ethnobotanical field surveys, taxonomic and distribution information, international journals, books, thesis, floras, reports and professional databases. The possible biases arising from data sources are assessed to make sure that the dataset are global representative. Results A total of 132 Ficus species are reported for dietary uses, including one subspecies and four varieties. Those species are found across all of the six subgenera of the genus Ficus . For distribution, 98 species from the Indo-Australasian region, 27 species from the African tropics (with one species, F. palmata , from both the two regions) and 8 from the Neotropics. The parts most commonly used are the figs (i.e. syconium or fruits) (110 species) and leaves (67 species), in various growth stages. It is also found that the certain plant parts of 78 species are used both for dietary and medicinal purpose. Among which the figs are frequently cited in the treatment of diarrhea and oligogalactia, the leaves in the treatment of diarrhea, stomach complaintsas, antidote and diabetes, the latex in the treatment of intestinal worms and wounds, and the barks in the treatment of diarrhea. Conclusions We demonstrate that throughout its area of distribution, the genus Ficus is generally used as a dietary plant, although use of a individual species seems uncommon. Furthermore, we highlight the diet-medicine overlap of the uses of this genus, which should enable further understanding of the potential for broader health benefits, rather than limiting studies in this genus to its only-medicinal properties [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]