PROTA standard

Use groups applied by PROSEA and PROTA

Such groups are used to organise the editing of the diverse volumes of PROSEA (Plant resources of South-East Asia) and of PROTA (Plant resources of tropical Africa), and help searching in the web versions. Precise uses are then expressed as free text in the content of the articles.

• Cereals and pulses

(including some non-graminaceous cereals (‘pseudo-cereals’)

• Vegetables

(including legume seeds eaten as sprouted seeds)

• Dyes and tannins

(including mordants and inks)

• Ornamentals

(including hedge and wayside plants)

• Forages

(including feed for fish and insects such as silkworms.

• Fruits

(including nuts)

• Timbers

(including bamboos used for construction)

• Carbohydrates

(including bee plants; excluding cereals and pulses yielding starch)

• Auxiliary plants

(including shade and nurse trees, live supports, cover crops, mulches, green manures, fallow crops, live fences, windbreaks, erosion-controlling plants, land reclamation species, and water-cleaning agents)

• Fuel plants

(including plants used for the production of charcoal and as tinder)

• Medicinal plants

(including poisonous plants used as pesticide, fish poison or dart poison, and narcotic plants)

• Spices and condiments

(including vegetable salt, and flavour compounds added for conservation, such as hop in beer)

• Essential oils and exudates

(including aromatic woods, and plants producing camphor, latex, resin, balsam, gum, wax and aromatic resin)

• Vegetable oils
• Stimulants

(including plants used for beverages, chewing and smoking; excluding narcotic plants, but including legal drugs)

• Fibres

(including rattans, and plants used for packing and thatching, as tying material, and for making paper, baskets, mats, wickerwork, wattle work and toothbrushes)

• Miscellaneous uses

including plants used for social, religious and magic purposes, games and as toys and ornaments (e.g. beads)