Honoring Who Came Before: Native American Ethnobotany at the Missouri Botanical Garden

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is a rich part of the cultural heritage of the Native American Tribes in the United States. With a history that goes back thousands of years, American Indians have developed a vast knowledge of their plant resources. Until recently, ethnobotanical research conducted by the William L. Brown Center (WLBC), a division of the Missouri Botanical Garden, has focused on several countries outside of the United States. In 2009, the WLBC developed a new program which emphasized collaborative research with Native American Tribes in the U.S. During the summer of 2009, visits were made to four reservations, the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation (Dakota), Standing Rock Indian Reservation (Lakota), Crow Creek Indian Reservation (Dakota) and the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation (Dakota). During the time spent in this area, ethnobotanical research projects were identified by the potential benefit to each of the involved communities.