Ethnobotanical and chorological research of Turkey's psychoactive natural plant diversity

Psychoactive plants are plants that cause changes in mood, perception and consciousness in the human mind with the various psychoactive substances, compounds and metabolites they contain. Throughout the history of humanity, these plants have been used for many different purposes such as health, a source of raw materials for different industries, a source of pleasure, and even for religious rituals. Studies on these plants have been carried out in many countries in the world and databases on psychoactive natural plant diversity have been reported on a country basis. In Turkey, there is no comprehensive study in this regard. Therefore, in this study, plants with reported psychoactive properties and naturally spreading in Turkey, which is rich in plant diversity, were determined. As a result of the researches, a total of 97 vascular psychoactive plant taxa (89 species, 3 subspecies and 5 varieties) in 30 families and 60 genera were defined. The determined taxa were also evaluated in terms of their ethnobotanical and chorological characteristics. In the last stage, the ones with ayurvedic usage among these taxa were determined and information about their usage was summarized. We believe that the results of the thesis will not only draw attention to the psychoactive plant taxa of Turkey, but also contribute as a database to possible future studies.