A review of the plant-based traditions of the Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad

This paper reviews the plants used by Spanish speakers in Trinidad and Tobago as documented in a 1994 publication. The plant uses were reviewed to determine whether the plants and uses were different from other ethnic groups in Trinidad and the wider region and to draw conclusions from the review. The review covers 148 plants. With few exceptions, the plants were Native and so were the uses. Several plants have been little studied (Ambroisa cumanensis, Aristolochia rugosa, Bauhinia cumanensis, Bauhinia excisa, Begonia humilis, Croton conduplicatus, Croton flavens, Cyperus diffusus, Desmodium incanum, Fleurya aestuans, Heliconia bihai). The Cocoa Panyols retained the knowledge of at least two plants first described in the 1800s that were no longer mentioned to researchers in Trinidad and Tobago after 1981 by the rest of the population. The Cocoa Panyols preserved their cultural and linguistic heritage by concentrating on cocoa growing in rural areas and their movement from place to place to establish cocoa plantations may account for the uniformity of information on ethnomedicine in Trinidad, which additionally is similar to medicinal plant knowledge of the original populations of South America.