BOT 3850: Medical Botany

Welcome to the LibGuide for the BOT 3850 Medical Botany course at USF!

Medical botany can be defined as the study of plants and plant products which can affect the health of humans or other animals in either a beneficial or harmful way. Medical botany has an extensive history. Plants have been studied since ancient times for their ability to heal and treat various medical conditions. The field of medical botany is highly interdisciplinary and intersects with other fields like organic chemistry (analyzing the plant molecular chemistry that produces medicinal effects), ethnobotany (looking at how people and cultures use various plant species), pharmacology (how the plant molecules interact with the biology of humans), and medicine (how the plant molecules can be applied for medicinal purposes).

This LibGuide has been specially designed to provide resources relevant to the content of your Medical Botany course. It includes articles, resources from Nobel Prize winners who specialized in medical botany topics, books, databases, journals, resources about the medicinal uses of Florida native plants, and more!

A special focus is given on medical botany related resources from the Florida Environment and Natural History (FLENH) collection at the USF Tampa Library - Special Collections. Information is included in the "Special Collections" page about how to access FLENH materials in-person or digitally. Also included are pages about the USF Herbarium and Florida Plant Atlas, the USF Botanical Gardens, other online medical botany related resources, and general research help.