Who Are We?
As a collegiate pre-professional club, we aim to help others establish and understand humanity’s relationships with plants through teaching, learning, service, and community building.
Through our opportunities and experiences, members of the Eckerd community can begin to recognize the interconnectedness and application of their disciplines on our perceptions of culture and the environment.
What is Ethnobotany?
Ethno- culture | -botany plants
Straight from its Greek roots, ethnobotany is the study of plants within culture. It lives within the broader field of ethnoecology, the study of how people interact with all aspects of the natural environment. While ethnobotanists generally work in primary growth areas, many are interested in a broad range of vegetation types which have been altered by people, ranging from home gardens to mature secondary forest.
Ethnobotany is a multidisciplinary endeavor, attracting a community of people who contribute their own special knowledge. The aim lies in finding a holistic view of our knowledge of the environment, through an interpersonal and intrapersonal lens.
Club Land Statement
The Ethnobot’ N’ Tea club recognizes that its home institution, Eckerd College, lies on the traditional land of the Seminole (seh-muh-nowl) people past and present, as well as that of the Tocobaga and other historical groups whose history here stretches back more than 12,000 years. We recognize the profound resilience of Seminole, Miccosukee, Muscogee, Choctaw, Cherokee, and people of other Native groups who, despite centuries of colonial oppression, continue to call Florida home. As an ethnobotany club, we commit to honoring the traditional knowledge of plants indigenous people have chosen to share, accurately include this knowledge into every aspect of our work, and care for this land, our home, to best of our ability.
Note: This Indigenous Land Acknowledgment was developed with input by Dr. Anna Guengerich, Dr. Antonia Krueger, Dr. Amanda Hagood, and Dr. Carolyn Johnston.
Dr. Mark Plotkin, Medicine Quest
“For all those involved - ethnobotanists, marine biologists, chemists, physicians, even rain forest shamans - this is a quest powered by the desperation of the ill and the compassion of those who would cure them”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants