ABC_Useful Plants of Malawi: Species used as Herbal aphrodisiacs

Elizabeth Mwafongo1, Elizabeth Mwafongo2, Eliza Mwafongo3

1 National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi, , Malawi; 2 National Herbarium & Botanic Gardens of Malawi, P.O. Box 528, Zomba, Malawi; 3 

Corresponding author(s): Elizabeth Mwafongo (emwafongo@yahoo.com), Elizabeth Mwafongo (emwafongo@yahoo.com)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Abstract

Several Ethnobotanical studies by National Herbarium & Botanical Gardens of Malawi(NHBG)and other studies have emphasized the wide use of herbal aphrodisiacs as they have been documented to have an effect on the libido of males by arousing the sexual instinct, induce desire and increasing pleasure and sexual performance. This dataset consists of some species and their localities.NHBG is trying to document these species with regards to their distribution and consequently and assessment of their conservation status because some of these species are extensively being harvested and sold within and outside of Malawi.

This dataset consists of some of the species mentioned in most of the  enthnobotanical surveys NHBG carries out(unpublished reports) as being used in the treatment of male impotence. Please note that not all localities have been documented in this case because NHBG has just started the process of data digitization.

Keywords: Occurrence, Malawi, aphrodisiacs, Specimen

General description

Purpose: In Malawi, there has been extensive harvesting of medicinal plants and those believed to enhance male sexual life are harvested widely and sold by traditional medicine practitioners throughout the country. The conservation status and distribution of most of these plant species haven't been extensively studied. NHBG has started the digitization process and consequently the under the African Biodiversity Challenge has been challenged to publish its data on GBIF after undergoing BID data Mobilization workshop at SANBI
Additional information: The dataset consists of 1000 records

Project details

Project title: Enhancing accessibility of biodiversity data in Malawi
Personnel: Elizabeth Mwafongo
Funding: JRS Biodiversity Foundation
Study area descriptions/descriptor: The project is being implemented in Malawi, central Africa.
Design description: The main objective of this project is to Facilitate easy access to biodiversity data information held by the Museums in Malawi and the major deliverable will be that Malawian Biodiversity data will be made available on a national Data platform.Participating institutions are; 
•	Museums of Malawi (MOM)
•	National Herbarium and Botanic Gardens (NHBG)
•	Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM)
•	National Commission for Science and Technology (NCST)

Data published through GBIF: http://196.32.215.240:8081/ipt/resource?r=malawi_aphrodisiacs_medicinals

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: This dataset consist of plants mentioned in ethnobotanical studies by National Herbarium and Botanical Garden staff used as aphrodisiacs.
Taxonomic ranks
Family: FABACEAE, EUPHORBIACEAE, ICACINACEAE, MALVACEAE, STERCULIACEAE, RUBIACEAE, ANNONACEAE, COMBRETACEAE, ACANTHACEAE, MELIACEAE, SAPINDACEAE, APOCYNACEAE, URTICACEAE, POLYGALACEAE, STRYCHNACEAE, BORAGINACEAE, ASTERACEAE, OLACACEAE, RHAMNACEAE

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: The samples from this list were collected by different authors from all the three regions of Malawi.
Coordinates: 16°53'20.4''S and 8°53'6''S Latitude; 32°41'42''E and 35°52'51.6''E Longitude 

Living time period: 1927-2002

Methods

Method step description: Please note that most of these samples are old and were not georeferenced. Georeferencing has been done by the author using a program called Geo-Locate(www.geo-locate.org)
Study extent description: This data is obtained from herbarium records which are being encoded in BRAHMS database. Since this is an ongoing projects; the records presented in this dataset is not exhaustive enough as it does not cover the entire geographical range of these species.
Sampling description: These samples were collected on routine field trips by different botanists

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive ABC_Useful Plants of Malawi: Species used as Herbal aphrodisiacs
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: http://196.32.215.240:8081/ipt/archive.do?r=malawi_aphrodisiacs_medicinals
Publication date of data: 2022-05-31
Language: English
Licences of use: Public Domain (CC0 1.0)

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2018-08-21
Hierarchy level: Dataset