Folk medicines of Çamlıdere (Ankara)

In this study, folk medicines which are being currently used in Çamlıdere, district of Ankara, were determined. Therefore, scientific trips were organized to different 42 locations in Çamlıdere. During the field trips, interviews were conducted with those who have knowledge on folk medicines. Upon the evaluation of the outcomes of the field study systematically, plants constituted the majority of folk medicines where it was determined that 65 species (73 taxa) belonging to 61 genera of 29 families in various treatments. Furthermore, 19 different animal sourced materials were identified to be used as folk medicine. In additon, neither plant nor animal sourced 8 different materials were determined to be used as folk medicine in the district. Plants of the Asteraceae family were determined to be used mostly, and other frequently used families were Lamiaceae and Rosaceae in Çamlıdere.Although respiratory tract diseases were the principal reason for using folk medicines, dermotologic problems, gastrointestinal system diseaes and rheumatismal complaints were the other frequent complaints. On the other hand, some ethnobotanical usages such as for heating and as food of plants were observed.When our findings were compared with the previous folk medicine studies, it was understood that the usage of Anthemis armeniaca Freyn & Sint., Astragalus microcephalus Willd., Crocus ancyrensis (Herbert) Maw, Glaucium grandiflorum Boiss. & Huet var. torquatum Cullen, Medicago lupulina L., Thuja orientalis L., Trifolium fragiferum L. var. fragiferum, Tripleurospermum callosum (Boiss. & Heldr.) E. Hossain spotted for first time in this study in Turkey. Furthermore, with this study, new usages of 41 folk medicines were determined different from previous studies.