botanic Culturally Significant Plants.

1. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
• Culturally Significant Plants for botanic
• By.AKABBOUCH ALAA

2. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
KEY CONCEPT
Humans rely on plants in many ways.

3. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
AGRICULTURE PROVIDES STABLE FOOD SUPPLIES
FOR PEOPLE IN PERMANENT SETTLEMENTS.
• Botany is the study of plants.
• Ethnobotany explores how people in different cultures use plants.

4. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
• People started planting for harvest about 10,000 years ago.
Teosinte
– wild species “tamed” through artificial selection
– farming requires people to stay in one place
– farming helped more socially complex centers develop
Teosinte is the
ancestor of
modern corn.

5. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
PLANT PRODUCTS ARE IMPORTANT ECONOMIC
RESOURCES.
• Plant products have been traded for thousands of years.
• spices commonly used as currency in Middle Ages

6. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
• Plant products contribute to economy on a global scale today.
– grains, coffee,
sugar, cotton, forest
products
– billions of dollars of
plant products
traded each year

7. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
QUESTION
• What plants were used to make the clothes that you
are wearing and the contents of your backpack?
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=qZju3dBsHCk

8. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
PLANT COMPOUNDS ARE ESSENTIAL TO MODERN
MEDICINE.
• Pharmacology is the study of drugs and their effects on the body.
• Many drugs are derived from plants.
• Salicin from willow trees is used in aspirin.
• Alkaloids are potent plant chemicals that contain nitrogen.
• Alkaloids such as taxol have anti-cancer properties.

9. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
WE STILL ARE USING PLANTS
MEDICINALLY!
• We still use some plants medicinally in the same way they have
been used for thousands of years.
• Example-The Aloe Vera gel you can buy to soothe sunburn was
used for the same purpose by the Egyptians 3,500 years ago.

10. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
• Some medical research focuses on properties of plant compounds.
– studies plants used
medicinally in traditional
cultures
– develop synthetic drugs
based on plant compounds

11. 20.4 Plants in Human Culture
BUT WHY THOUGH???
• Why might it be important for chemists to develop
synthetic drugs based on plant compounds?