Medicinal and aromatic plants of Guatemala and the need for their conservation

The use of plants by indigenous Americans dates back more than 10,000 years. Long before Europeans came to America, native Americans such as Mayas, Aztecs and Incas had a very developed knowledge of plants, especially those used as medicine. In Central America the first work on traditional medicine was written in Nahuatl in 1552 and translated into Latin with the title Libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis. In 1772, the chronicler Francisco Ximenez cited in La Historia del Reino de Guatemala more than 100 medicinal plants used by the native people. Many inhabitants of rural areas depended on medicinal plants. Part of an ethnobotanical survey carried out at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala sought to rescue the valuable knowledge from different ethnic groups about their use of medicinal and aromatic plants. In this study, we found that the same plant (exp. Lippia graveolens, Eryngium foetidum or Chenopodium ambrosioides) may be used to treat different diseases, disorders, or for flavoring food because the whole plant contains an essential oil.