Abstract:
Background: Medicinal plants are traded as products with vernacular names, but these folk taxonomies do not
always correspond one-to-one with scientific plant names. These local species entities can be defined as ethnospecies
and can match, under-differentiate or over-differentiate as compared to scientific species. Identification of plant species
in trade is further complicated by the processed state of the product, substitution and adulteration. In countries like
Tanzania, an additional dimension to mapping folk taxonomies on scientific names is added by the multitude of
ethnicities and languages of the plant collectors, traders and consumers. This study aims to elucidate the relations
between the most common vernacular names and the ethnicity of the individual traders among the medicinal
plant markets in Dar es Salaam and Tanga regions in Tanzania, with the aim of understanding the dynamics of
vernacular names in plant trade.
Methods: A total of 90 respondents were interviewed in local markets using semi-structured interviews. The
ethnicity of each respondent was recorded, as well as the language of each ethnospecies mentioned during the
interviews. Voucher collections and reference literature were used to match ethnospecies across languages.
Results: At each market, the language of the majority of the vendors dominates the names for medicinal products.
The dominant vendors often represent the major ethnic groups of that region. Independent of their ethnicity, vendors
offer their products in the dominant language of the specific region without apparently leading to any confusion or
species mismatching.
Conclusions: Middlemen, traders and vendors adapt their folk classifications to those of the ethnic groups of the
region where they conduct their trade, and to the ethnicity of their main customers. The names in the language
of the traders are not forgotten, but relegated in favor of the more salient names of the dominant tribe.
