This paper offers a critical examination of the use of the concept of ontology in ethnobotany. Competing definitions and problems are first assessed for recent work in anthropology and the history of science. This is followed by a review of seven areas of current ethnobotanical investigation where there are disjunctions of approach that could arguably be said to be ontological: post-Linnean taxonomic orthodoxy versus local plant classification, pre-Linnean natural history versus science, phytopharmaceutical orthodoxy versus medical anthropology, museum practice versus lived practice, ecological versus phylogenetic explanation, plant versus knowledge movement, and shifts in understanding contingent on membership of different intra-cultural domains. In the light of these examples, a threefold meta-conceptual distinction is suggested: between cultural domains (distinguishing knowledge and practice on the grounds of content), epistemes (distinguishing knowledge in terms of the methods and approaches used to acquire it), and ontologies in the strict sense (defined in terms of underlying logical relations and cosmological assumptions).

This paper explores the complex interactions between people and the psychotoxic crop contaminant and wheat mimicker darnel (Lolium temulentum). Bringing together knowledge from literary, historical, religious, medical, and scientific sources, we trace the ways in which the plant’s cultural story has been informed by its cultivation (accidental and otherwise) by humans. Darnel is a man-made plant that evolved from a perennial progenitor and was subject to the same human-mediated selection pressures as the ancestral cereal species it infested. The toxicity of darnel grains is due to a cocktail of phytochemicals secreted by genetically complex endophytic fungi of the genus Epichloë, closely related to ergot (Claviceps purpurea). We show how darnel’s reputation as a poisonous cereal mimic that corrupts the food-chain made the plant a symbol of malign subversion, notably invoked in crises around religious heterodoxy and political subversion. We consider the ways in which literary allusions, from Shakespeare to Dickens, identified the corrupting influence of darnel with psychological and social breakdown. Darnel is classified as extinct in the United Kingdom and other developed countries with intensive agriculture, and its significance as a food chain contaminant and literary and religious symbol is vanishing from experience and understanding. This paper, then, is intended to serve as a textual seed bank to collect darnel’s cultural traces, and to demonstrate the ways in which the plant has annotated key debates and moments of crisis in human history.

Plant breeding is often referred to as a process of crop improvement, and the crop varieties produced by breeders are called improved varieties. Improved crop varieties bear trademarked names and they fill food systems and farming landscapes across the world, thus comprising a large portion of terrestrial biodiversity taken up in agriculture. Outside a narrow field of literature dealing with plant breeding and agricultural science, very little is known about what exactly constitutes an improved crop variety, and how these improvements impact existing and future relationships between people and crops. In essence, what is an improved crop variety? In this paper, I explore how a particular type of white maize in northwest Portugal is transformed into an improved variety named Pigarro through an experimental type of participatory plant breeding (PPB). I draw upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted on the project using an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) conceptual framing to suggest that this transformation constitutes an ontological shift beyond the conceptual-taxonomic level. Rather, the key difference between white maize and Pigarro has to do with the wide range of human and nonhuman actors who are enrolled in the project. ANT provides a lens into the constant work of social world ordering that takes place around producing and reproducing Pigarro. Thus, I argue for a relational ontology that understands crop varieties as actor-networks and collectives of humans and nonhumans, rather than as forms of socially purified biophysical nature.

Contemporary environmental threats inspire the formation of new global communities and relationships: networks that both transcend nations and local environmental interactions and forge novel assemblages of human and non-human collaborations in a bid to “reset their modes of being” (Scott 2013:864). The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP), for example, is the largest ex situ plant conservation project in the world and brings together partners from over 80 countries in an endeavor to conserve seeds from rare, wild plant species. As the potential use of the wild plant becomes increasingly central to the conservation relationship at the MSBP and implicated within a wider discourse on the neoliberalization of conservation, this paper explores how the term “use” may in fact encompass a nascent desire to reframe the human-plant relationship. By critically evaluating the values and intentions behind the quest for novel plant-uses by those who work within the MSBP, this paper examines the implications of seed-saving within a contemporary conservation institution. For those involved, rather than objectifying and creating a utilitarian relationship with nature, the concept of use is indicative of an aspiration to foster intimate, reciprocal relationships with their non-human counterparts, operating within an ontology in which humans and plants are interdependent. This paper argues that at a time when sustaining ontological diversity is key to ensuring cultural resilience and adaptation to environmental challenges, it is vital that ethnobiologists engage not only with traditional models, but also explore what innovative, intentional relationships with nature may be emerging from within conservation.

Cultural programs, such as revitalization forums, support community goals of resilience, whether by conserving and recreating particular plant uses, or by fostering dynamic traditions marked by innovation and adoption of new wild food uses and ideologies. This paper explores the significance of traditional plant revitalization forums for the Sevettijärvi-Näätämö community, located in northern Finland in close proximity to Norwegian and Russian borders. Along with Finns and other Sami groups, this region comprises a significant Skolt Sami population present in the area since relocation from Petsamo (in particular Suenjel sijd) after World War II. The unique history of the region and past marginalization and assimilation pressures have stimulated current revitalization initiatives, which seek to celebrate Skolt Sami culture and revitalize traditional skills and knowledge, including food traditions. The study compares food tradition presentations during a summer cultural festival with ethnographic data on wild food use in Sevettijärvi-Näätämö. This comparison explores selection of knowledge for revitalization forums, and the potential impact of this selection on wild food use. Results show that the types of plant and fungi uses (in particular Inonotus obliquus and the inner bark of Pinus sylvestris) presented in revitalization forums reflect a blend of historical and recent nutritional influences. These plants and fungi may be well-known and recorded anthropologically or commercialized and commonly available. On the other hand, cultural programs focus on food traditions while excluding medicinal plants. Data on local plant use demonstrates that the degree to which revitalization forums impact plant use may depend on opportunities for acquiring skills through other avenues.

This paper explores how members of the indigenous Canela community of northeast Brazil value and make meaningful their engagements with cultivated plants in their local Cerrado (“savannah”) environment through the recent creation of written ethnobotanical lists and through more traditional multi-sensory, embodied approaches. It compares the traditional approach of Canela gardeners coming to know and “becoming with” growing plants through caring, affectionate activities such as garden visits, ritual singing, food sharing, and shamanic communication, with that of the recent written documentation of ethnobotanical knowledge that is associated with people and things coming from a world “outside” the community. Through the creation of fluid and dynamic living lists, Canela gardener parents are seeking new and innovative ways to engage with and know the plant children growing in their gardens. Both the traditional and newer approaches to plant knowledge can and do co-exist in the community. Moreover, Canela gardeners are embracing and working through the “ontological frictions” that emerge between disparate ways of knowing about and of becoming alongside cultivated plants. The Canela case can contribute to a broader understanding of biodiversity management as “childcare” and encourage a deeper engagement with both humans’ and plants’ perspectives in future ethnobotanical studies.

This paper offers an anthropological account of rattan (Calamoideae arecaceae) knowledge and its acquisition amongst Ngaju Dayak rattan farmers in Katingan, Indonesian Borneo. Rattan is the generic term for a large and complex group of mostly climbing spiny palms, constituting the world’s most important non-timber agroforest product. Yet due to over-exploitation and forest conversion, not only are natural rattan stocks dwindling, but so too is popular knowledge of its multiple uses. Following a practice-oriented approach to environmental knowledge and its transmission, I discuss the relationship between people and rattan. The underlying assumption is that knowledge involves sensual and performative aspects in addition to conceptual dimensions. While it is shown that learning of rattan knowledge rests on a combination of various factors and is sequential and gender-, context-, and phase-dependent, I argue that rattan knowledge develops through an active engagement with the surrounding world and rattan itself. Environmental knowledge transmission among rattan managers does not rest on passing on a stock of context-free information. Rather, individuals learn rattan knowledge by the very continuity of practice as they join in the experience of others—even though years-long phases of non-practice and associated forgetting form part of the dynamic properties of rattan knowledge as well.

Shea butter, a vegetal fat derived from the nuts of the shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa), is a critical component of the diet for societies in the savanna belt of West Africa. This paper presents the results of an analysis of the longest continuous single site sequence of shea butter production and use yet known, spanning ca. 100–1500 CE, at the well-preserved archaeological site of Kirikongo, located in western Burkina Faso. Drawing on the ethnography of shea butter production, we argue that the high archaeological visibility of shea at Kirikongo results from the use of particular processing methods that created opportunities for carbonization. Through a systematic study of shea testae thickness measurements, we identify the exploitation of different shea tree populations by different households. After exploring several possible causes, including archaeological assemblage formation processes, environmental variability, and human manipulation, we conclude that these differences likely result from the management of shea trees within agricultural fields, as the shea testae recovered from older households with more established fields tend to be thinner and more regular than those from more recently established households. These results indicate that it may be possible to use shea testae from archaeological sites to reconstruct the history of agricultural field systems.

Informal seed saving and farmer-to-farmer seed exchange are dictated by local rules and practices, which in turn can influence the distribution and management of crop biodiversity. Such systems are essential components of the livelihoods of small-holder farmers in Kenya and for in situ conservation of intraspecific and interspecific diversity. Using a mixed methods approach combining interviews, focus groups, and a household survey, we identify that the distribution of crop varieties in Tharaka, Kenya, has been shaped by both human migrations that have transported seeds and gender roles that have restricted travel and utilization of local indigenous varieties during early migrations. Our results suggest that the migrations of the first Tharaka people from Mbwa 300 years ago have influenced the concentration of local indigenous varieties in the areas of first settlement today. Subsequent smaller migrations dictated by men within Tharaka through the 1960s, particularly to the northern areas, originally limited the distribution of crops, such as pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), that are dependent on women for seed selection and processing. This study offers a specific case where the consideration of human migration and gender roles, currently and historically, have influenced the distribution of crop biodiversity, and thus farmer access, to specific types of varieties within a single region and ethnic group.

This study presents results of interdisciplinary fieldwork in Southwest China by a team of linguists and ethnobotanists. It is based on a comparative analysis of 70 common plant names in five Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in Shuiluo Valley. The discussion focuses on (a) names for locally important field crops and (b) plant names that are shared between two or more languages. We make a preliminary stratification of cognates and loanwords; we advance hypotheses about the sources of loanwords; and we assess the distribution of loanwords against the background of the existing historical and linguistic accounts of the studied languages. The observed patterns shed light on the complex migration history in the area and identify a group of plant names which may originate in a linguistic variety which was once (or still is) native to Shuiluo.

There is a vast literature on Bribri people's food harvesting, but this literature has largely overlooked how Bribri people interpret their food harvesting practices. Using a landscape ethnoecology approach, we worked with Bribri colleagues to describe forest food harvesting in one community (Bajo Coen) within the Talamanca Bribri Indigenous Territory in Costa Rica. Sylvester spent nine months living and harvesting food with Bribri people, and carried out semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to gather information. Our study revealed that harvesting food requires interacting with non-human beings to ensure harvesting is respectful of other Bribri worlds and Sibö’s (the Creator) teachings. We also illustrate how harvesting and cultivating food in the forest is important to keep the land alive. Our study further revealed how farm and forest land patches are linked through Bribri harvesting. People plant cultivated species in forests and transplant wild species into farms. These practices are important to access food, to encourage animals in spaces near dwellings, and to keep the land alive. Lastly, we illustrate spatial and temporal links among the following activities: 1) polyculture and wild harvesting (of both plants and animals), 2) shifting agriculture and harvesting wild edible greens, and 3) hunting and harvesting wild greens. Our results are relevant to forest management because we provide information about Bribri harvesting practices that forest managers have committed to supporting but have reported lacking the information to do so.