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)