THE PLANTS OF THE PARAGUAY NATURAL ILUSTRADO BY SÁNCHEZ LABRADOR (S.J.): COMPLEXING THE IDENTIFICATION OF YCIPO AND OTHER RELATED "YERBAS"

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of Jesuit documents in ethnobotanical works related to plant identification, among other aspects. The aim of this paper is to identify the plants present in Book V of Part II of Paraguay Natural Ilustrado, to present their uses, and to discuss the scope of the concept of ycipo proposed by the author in relation to current and past works. In addition, it is intended to highlight the contribution of this work in the study of Jesuit documents. Using the historical ethnobotanical methodology, the book V Ycipos, y otras plantas sarmentosas (39 handwritten pages and 11 illustrations) of the manuscript Paraguay Natural Ilustrado by José Sánchez Labrador (1772) was analyzed. Fifty-nine plants (59 botanical taxa) were surveyed, 28 identified to species level, 20 to generic level, 3 to family level and 8 that could not be identified, all of them with documented uses. The detailed nature of the descriptions provided by Sánchez Labrador made it possible to identify most of the plants at the species or species group level, of which more than half of the total constitute novelties in the Jesuit bibliography, allowing in some cases to clarify the taxonomic identity of plants from other Jesuit works. In the case of the term ycipo, it is suggested that it had a much broader and more complex meaning than it has today.