Medicinal plants used by Brazilian people from Ipê city, in Rio Grande do Sul State, were the subject of a survey realized in order to investigate the traditional medicine in this comunity. The project involved 114 individuals who cited 252 medicinal plants. From these plants, 105 species were identified and classified into 48 botanical families. Assessments of all known plants were based on chemical, pharmacological and toxicological data searched in scientific literature. The results show that many of these plants were not yet chemically and/or pharmacologically and/or toxicologically studied, and eleven of them were related to be responsible for side effects or even toxicity in the consulted scientific literature.
medicinal plants; folk medicine; Rio Grande do Sul State