Ethnobotany
Ethnobotany is generally defined as the scientific study of the relationships between plants and people. The fungi, while comprising a kingdom of life completely separate from plants, and, according to molecular evidence, are more closely related to animals than plants, have in practice been included within the scope of ethnobotanical research, although the term ethnomycology is sometimes employed to refer to the relationships between fungi and people. Additional terms are sometimes used to distinguish other subdisciplines of ethnobotany, such as ethnopteridology (the study of relationships between people and ferns and related plants), but for purposes of this encyclopedia, all such subdivisions are considered to be within the scope of ethnobotany. Sometimes a distinction is made between the term economic botany, referring to the study of the use of plants by industrialized society, and ethnobotany, referring to the study of plants used by nonindustrialized cultures, but this distinction is increasingly blurring. Sometimes economic botany is considered to be the broader discipline, encompassing all uses of plants by any people, from New York City to New Caledonia. For example,the journal Economic Botany routinely contains research articles ranging from the use of fungi for medicinal purposes by Amazonian indigenous peoples to the chemical composition of palm seed oils with respect to potential industrial application.
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