Biosemiotics (2010) 3:299313 DOI 10.

1007/s12304-010-9078-9 O R I G I N A L PA P E R

Plant as Object within Herbal Landscape: Different Kinds of Perception

Renata Sukand & Raivo Kalle

Received: 31 January 2010 / Accepted: 12 March 2010 / Published online: 23 April 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract This contribution takes the notion of herbal landscape (a mental field associated with plants used to cure or prevent diseases and established within specific cultural and climatic zones) as a starting point. The authors argue that the features by which a person recognises the plant in the natural growing environment is of crucial importance for the classification and the use of plants within the folk tradition. The process of perception of the plant can be divided into analytical categories according to the sign concept of Charles Sanders Peirce. Whereas the plant can be seen as the object, the feature(s) the plant is recognised by is (are) the representamen(s), and the image of the plant within the herbal landscape can be understood as the interpretant. Different methods of perception of the signs within the herbal landscape are demonstrated comparing the herbal knowledge acquired from the herbals with the method of plant recognition learned in the traditional way. The first can be looked at with the terms of Tim Ingold as transportation, using plant features to go across, leaving all other signs present in the landscape unnoticed. The wayfarer, guided by signs learned within the context of surroundings, walks along and perceives the plant as a part of the herbal landscape. Although the examples analysed come from Estonian ethnobotany, the method of analysis can be applied in ethnobotanical research worldwide.

R. Sukand : R. Kalle Estonian Literary Museum, Vanemuise 42, Tartu, Estonia R. Sukand (*) Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics, Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78, Tartu, Estonia e-mail: renata@folklore.ee

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Keywords Ethnobotany . Recognition of plant . Interpretation . Perceived landscape . Medicinal plants On numerous occasions, our guide would come to a tree, take a piece of its bark, smell it, taste it, and then firmly provide us with the plants name (Berlin 1970: 11, reprinted in Berlin 1992: 7) Wild plant knowledge is based on practices and oral transmission which are vulnerable to decay and transformation through globalisation; and the concepts of it are more important to preserve than mere facts and practices (Brodt 2001). Hence many researchers have observed different aspects of knowledge transmission (Lozada et al. 2006), explored the role of the doctrine of signature in the plant selection process (Bennett 2007; Dafni and Lev 2002), and studied the categorisation and the adaptation of plant knowledge (Mller-Schwarze 2006). Also, there is an ongoing debate about classification of the environment and those elements that cause certain species to be used and others rejected (Rivera et al. 2007). In the last decade more researchers have been paying attention to the fact that wild plant use is a relevant component of local traditional ecological knowledge (Lozada et al. 2006; Eyssartier et al. 2008; Lira et al. 2009; Jari et al. 2007), and should be looked at as a complex phenomena, covering historical, geographical, cultural, cross-cultural, economical, social etc. aspects (Lozada et al. 2006; de Natale et al. 2009; Liu et al. 2009; Molares and Ladio 2009; Thomas et al. 2009; Vandebroek et al. 2004; Reyes-Garca et al. 2006). Still, the usual starting point of ethnobotanical research is taxonomical identification of the species based on the herbarium referring to common-name (Lozada et al. 2006; Molares and Ladio 2009) or in situ identification of the plant pointed at or described by the informants during a casual walk (Collins et al. 2006). Although the importance of plant characteristics like roughness, hairs, and odours as well as ecological detailsin recognition of the plant by a native useris a widely accepted fact (Thomas et al. 2007), the mechanisms of the identification of the useful plants are not documented in the research reports (i.e. publications). Moreover, the importance of the mechanisms of the field-identification of species by the participants in the interviews seems to be strongly underestimated by all leading researchers in the field of ethnobotanical research. Taking the notion of the herbal landscape (a mental field associated with plants used to cure or prevent diseases and established within specific cultural and climatic zones) as a starting point, we argue that the features by which the informant recognises the plant in the natural growing environment are of crucial importance for the classification and use of the plants within folk tradition, e.g. outside taxonomical classification and scientific research. This argumentation is based primarily on Estonian herbal lore, selected and digitised from 1.5 million handwritten pages of folklore, collected during 1868 1994. It consists of approximately 15,000 medical usage cases of ca. 550 plant species growing in Estonia (Sukand and Kalle 2008)1 and the authors personal
1

The approximation in numbers is due to the fact that digitalisation is an ongoing process and is still not completed.

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fieldwork conducted during the summer and fall of 2009 in several parts of Estonia, where 30 persons were interviewed with the help of trainees.

Ecological and Cultural Background Estonia belongs to the boreo-nemoral vegetation zone, or to the northern part of the temperate hardwood-coniferous forest zone (Masing et al. 2000). The vegetation period lasts for 185190 days, and the frost-free period for 105160 days. That causes almost all vegetation to flower in a relatively short period of time, and most of the herbaceous medicinal plants should be collected within the vegetation period. The vegetation of Estonia is very diverse. Forests, mires and grasslands alternate with cultivated land (for more on Estonian vegetation, see Paal 1998). Meadows and grasslands constitute up to one-fifth (Peterson 1994), whereas almost half of the territory is covered with forests, which includes peaty soils that cover almost onethird of Estonia (Valk 1988). Although Estonia covers a relatively small area, its territory can be divided into 12 geographical regions according to plants habituating on their range limit (Lippmaa 1935). The indigenous flora of Estonia includes 1,441 species (incl. hybridogenic species) of vascular plants. The number also covers taxa with an unclear existence in the present Estonian flora (herbarium evidence provided, but no fresh findings). The total number of species and subspecies migrated or cultured and run wild (including naturalised) is 718 (Kukk 1999). Since the second half of the 20th century, intensive agriculture caused by collectivisation and urbanisation has caused local species to diminish or even disappear (Kukk and Kull 2006). In 1881, there were 893,558 inhabitants in Estonia, according to the population census. Of them, 796,809 were of Estonian nationality. Most of the population was rural, and the Estonian language was used mostly among the rural population. 137 pharmacies were working in the whole of Estonia in 1897these were mostly situated in towns and in the centre of parishes. In the same year, one doctor had to help on average 17,162 people in rural areas. That was the reason why the rural population still relied considerably on homemade medicines, and in some parishes a whole generation of people would grow up without any of them ever having seen a doctor (Sukand and Raal 2004). In 1888, Estonian folklorist and linguist Jakob Hurt (18391907) launched his famous appeal to the active sons and daughters of Estonia to collect local folklore.2 Among other requests (to collect songs, myths, beliefs, etc.), he listed 54 vernacular plant names (with the Latin equivalent supplied for some) and asked people to send popular descriptions of their use, thereby initiating a long-lasting collecting tradition as well as laying the foundation for future research. Since that time, about 1.5 million pages of general folklore have been stored in the Estonian Folklore Archives.
2

Historical Estonian herbal folk medicine differed greatly within the cultural space, and the differences remain mostly within parish borders (Sukand and Kalle 2008). Church parishes (kihelkond) are historical territorial units that were in wide use until the 1920s; even nowadays many people recognise their homeparish. The borders of the parishes have remained unchanged since the early Middle Ages, and native Estonians, being servants, were prohibited to move around the country; even marriage to a person from another parish was complicated.

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In 2000, approximately 1.37 million inhabitants lived in Estonia, of whom 0.93 million (two-thirds) were Estonians, and approximately two-thirds of the whole population now live in cities. One family doctor had to help on average 1,000 patients, and pharmacies were present in almost every settlement with a population of more than 1,000. Nevertheless, medicinal plants were and are still (in 2009) widely used. Many young and middle-aged people, who have not acquired their plant knowledge in the traditional way, still try to rebuild it using historical and modern herbals. Such a change of the origin of herbal knowledge has also influenced the nomenclature of the species used. The use of herbs is rather spontaneous in Estonia, due to the long tradition of herb use and the fact that they are still available for collecting in nature and sold in pharmacies. In general, in Estonia people think that their literacy for the most popular medicinal plants is high (in the Soviet times, as schoolchildren, we all had to collect medicinal plants for pharmacies during our summer vacations), especially in rural areas, and they feel relatively confident in recognising the needed plant.

Method To realise how the orientation within the herbal landscape occurs, we need a method for understanding the idea of the perception of the object within the individual herbal landscape. For this purpose we use the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce (18391914) as a guide, especially his fundamental triadic concept of the sign. In his works, Peirce introduces an idiosyncratic and varying terminology of sign relations. Although Peirce has referred to his sign model as consisting of sign, thing signified, and cognition produced in the mind (CP 1.372), which is more understandable for people coming from outside semiotics, the more often cited and used forms of his terminology are given in his most elaborate definition: A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea (CP 2.228) Representamen is a perceptible object (CP 2.230) that functions as a sign, being the first correlate of a complete triad. The second correlate of the sign is the object, the material object of the world or a mental or imaginary entity, which may in the borderline case of self-reference be the same as the representamen (CP 2.230). The interpretant is a meaning of a sign, also defined as signification or interpretation (CP 8.184); it is something created in the mind of the interpreter (CP 8.179). This something is a new sign created in the mind of the person and in turn becomes the representamen for another sign. This creates the semiosis, a series of successive interpretants (CP 2.303). In the following chapters we rely on Peirces concepts and their explanations, but use them relatively freely, developing new concepts suitable for the phenomena and the data. As the story progresses, we also implement Tim Ingolds ideas of transporting and wayfaring (Ingold 2000, 2006, 2009) to compare traditional and book-derived herbal knowledge.

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Signs Perceived Within the Herbal Landscape In order to use Peirces triadic relation of the sign to analyse the perception of the plant within the herbal landscape, the concepts used by Peirce should be related to phenomena occurring within the herbal landscape. Admitting that the projection of the herbal landscape as a mental field can be physically applied to a small box storing medicinal plants purchased from a pharmacy, in this piece of writing we analyse only the herbal landscape associated with the wider physical surroundings, requiring personal identification of the plant and its being gathered from nature. Such an approach allows us to understand the mechanisms by which the plant is perceived and recognised within its natural or semi-natural surroundings. The basis for this theoretical approach lies in historic folklore texts written about herbal use predominantly by the users themselves. In these cases the means by which the plant was recognized were generally not emphasised. The authors fieldwork interviews are scanty and reflect only the present-day situation. That makes many assumptions hypothetical, and requires later explications through fieldwork. Entering the herbal landscape, a person first has to perceive the signals from the landscape and then transform them into meaningful signs (sensu Farina 2008). The concept of representamen reveals that it is not the plant (as a whole physical object within the physical landscape) that is perceived by the person, but those qualities are some features of a physical object, or a mental image associated with the physical object, that cause the presupposition that it might be (if a person is only searching) or definitely is (if a person knows) useful for the treatment of some disease. These features can be the appearance, colour, smell, and taste of the whole or some part of the plant; the habitat or other plants/animals/minerals associated with the plant. During their lives, plants undergo several developmental stages and can be characterised by different features. Although some of them are present throughout the growth period (this is especially valid for evergreen trees), the majority change over their life spans, often drastically. That makes the margins for the object within the concept of herbal landscape quite uncertain. If the plant sample collected in situ is considered as the object, it should be emphasised in what growing stage the plant is collected. Thinking beyond the subject of this article, the object can also be a photo of the plant described (which itself reflects only a representamen for the photographer, the plant part he or she thinks is important) or our imagination of the plant described in a text. Now, the image of the plant (or plant part) appearing in the mind of the person identifying the plant should be the interpretant. Although the notion of the image most often refers to some visual phenomenon, in case of the herbal landscape it can be a linguistic phenomenon as well, referring to the name of the plant. This interpretant is related to the representamen of the plant and at the same time being a representamen for the interpretant relating the plant to the disease. Such semiosis of successive interpretants is created each time a person sees a medicinal plant. Hereafter we compare two possibilities, of whether a person looks for one plant or many plants known by him or her (traditional approach), or looks for a named (and/or described) plant chosen from a book (modern approach). Although the starting point (the need to cure some disease) is the same, the process of selecting and the representamen looked for may be totally different, as well as the recognition of the plantthereby representing two different worldviews.

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When Knowledge Comes from a Book A generally widespread approach is that most plant knowledge is derived from herbals. Herbals published in Estonian (as well as internationally) almost always arrange the book so that the plant chapters (usually placed in alphabetical order) give the name (sometimes vernacular names as well), description of the plant, its habitat, when to pick it and what parts of it to pick, and its use, listing the diseases and preparation mood if applicable. Sometimes, the end of the book also provides an index for the diseases, and quite many books contain a table indicating when the plant should be gathered/picked up. The results of our fieldwork showed that all interviewed used books to smaller or larger extents to find the plants. Now, when the modern person needs to cure some new disease or just to collect stocks for a seasonal cold, he or she studies the herbal, first finding out what plants are needed to cure the problem. Then the decision can be made, and one plant needed is chosen in accordance with the current need, earlier experiences, and the time when the person can collect the plant. The person goes out to the field (to a specific habitat provided in the book) and looks for one particular taxon described and depicted in the book, searching for the specific feature ascribed to the plant. In the ideal case, the trip to the collection site is carefully planned, and if the timing is correct, the person just goes and collects the plant needed, relying on personal knowledge, guidelines and the photo of the plant given in the book. What matters here is that just this one specific taxon is meant to be selectedalthough in the same habitat other plants may grow that can be used for the same problem, they may be left unnoticed. In such a situation the path within the herbal landscape is predetermined, and it seems like hardly anything can change it. Most of the herbals published in recent years have big beautiful photos of plants as obligatory components of the book. The photo is the most attractive part of the bookindeed, it is obvious why books on folk medicine are so popular in presentday Estonia. Leaving aside the fact that the photo itself represents the interpretant of the photographer, it becomes the representamen of the plant for the person searching for the plant, as descriptions of the plant given in the book are often left aside. The following excerpt from an interview with a 79-year old woman who now lives in Tartu, but who spent most of her life in rural areas, demonstrates peoples usual approach to medicinal books. The last book I bought was Mis ravimtaim see on? Uus looduse teejuht [What medicinal plant is it? New guide to nature], it was translated to Estonian in 2008. I liked it pretty well, as it has very beautiful pictures, understandable and I can see them. If I do not know [the plant], I learn. Etbot 15, 1 (7) < Tartu < Jgevamaa (2009). In fact, this book (Hensel 2008) is pocket format (approximately A6, which makes it easy to carry along), and although it is built up as a key book for plants, the pictures given there are rather misleading, even if sharp and nice. Leaving aside the problems of comparing pictures of foreign plants (the book was translated from German, and the pictures originate from there) with locally grown plants, and an abundance of plants not found in Estonia outside cultivated areas,3 such herbals can lead to simplification and underestimation of the signs seen in nature.
3

As there are many books in the bookstore from local authors featuring only locally grown plants.

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Although almost all herbals provide detailed written descriptions of the plant to be collected, and emphasise the important features of the specific species (which might be perceived as a representamen for them), people relay mostly on the pictures. With this picture, the book provides the reader with many possible representamens at once, making him or her feel relatively secure. If the person thinks that he generally knows the plant (actually the name of the plant), has collected it before, etc., the more this feeling of security grows. The more secure the person feels, the higher the chances are that the wrong taxon will be collected, as many specific features are undistinguishable from the photograph. Besides, smell is difficult to describe by way of a photograph. The mix-up can happen between two species with opposite pharmaceutical effects, or a poisonous plant can be used instead (especially valid for mushrooms, which are in folk classification also seen as plants). From the point of view of the herbal landscape, the important feature here is that the movement of the person within it is very much determinedit relies on fixed representamens, but is still uncertain, as his or her knowledge is only theoretical. Moreover, such habits of relying on herbals have created, in Tim Ingolds and Terhi Kurttilas words, a modern construction of traditional knowledge (MTK) (sensu lato Ingold and Kurttila 2000), thus seemingly maintaining the tradition of plant collecting, without the knowledge having ever actually lived along. Getting the self-extracted guidelines from the book, a person approaches the meadow or forest with certain expectations of what the plant should look like. He moves from one point, seemingly fulfilling the requirements of the plant interpretant developed in his imagination, to another, but may miss the right taxon, which has not yet achieved the specific growth phase. In fact he uses only one or two representamens for the scanning-search of the landscape (e.g. the colour of the blooms, shape, height, etc.). In-between the examination of potentially successive candidates, he sees nothing. Tim Ingold describes the route of a transported modern traveller in the following way: in between sites he barely skims the surface of the world, leaving no trace of having passed by or even any recollection of the journey (Ingold 2006: 25), and this explains pretty well the situation for specific plant search. In Ingolds terms (Ingold 2006) crossing the field from point A to point B is going across, the transportation, and all other signs are left unnoticed. On the other hand, the book is like a map and the reader just continues to use the map when entering the herbal landscape navigating among the network of transportation (sensu lato Ingold 2009), losing everything but the point of destination.

When Knowledge Comes from Tradition An opposite situation occurs when the person goes, in Ingolds terms, wayfaring. Then the search for the plant is more of a walk in nature. Although the original impulse for the search for the plant originates again from the need to cure a disease, this plant knowledge originates from tradition, and/or it is transmitted from one generation to another. In the case of traditionally transmitted knowledge, every sign on the road to the plant becomes important, but it does not stand out from the background. Thats why

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it seems to the person that he or she just knows it: I go out to the field and there it is, and I pick it up (35-year old woman, informal communication with authors). Knowing, like the perception of the environment in general, proceeds along paths of observation (Ingold 2000). She has simply been encountering the same plant in the same place all her life, and it was her grandmother who showed her several useful plants growing around her family farm. This way, she has her own personal herbal landscape, physically situated in the near surroundings of the place she has been living all her life. Like in the case with plant knowledge derived from herbals, the plant itself can have only a few features functioning as representamen, but they are very trustworthy, being repeatedly experienced personally. What makes them at times more reliable is that they are situated within the landscape with the other signs naturally pointing to the right place. Walking along those specific signs, a person may even not notice their existence, as she has a habit of walking or working there, but they are still there, silently guiding the wayfarer. She does not need a map, as a herbals reader doesshe just proceeds along her way and finds the required plant as a part of everyday seasonal activity; to be followed by the everyday activity of drying the plant, for exampleone step after another. Or as Ingold states it: The traveller or storyteller who knows as he goes is neither making a map nor using one. He is, quite simply, mapping. And the forms or patterns that arise from that mapping process whether in the imagination or materialised as artefacts, are but stepping stones along the way, punctuating the process rather than initiating it or brining it to a close (Ingold 2000: 23031). Until the end of the 19th century, Estonians were living settled in one place. Through traditional agricultural practices, the landscape was changing relatively slowlygrasslands, meadows and wooden meadows with rich plant communities were the same places for centuries. When the landscape changes slowly, the plants change their habitat slowly as well, and this ensures that traditional herbal practices are carried on. Since folklore texts were written by the carriers of folklore, without any researcher walking along with them in the field, quite few details on the recognition of plants are presented. Still, the descriptions of the plant and its habitat provided in herbal lore are more characteristic to the earlier folklore (end of the 19th to the very beginning of the 20th centuries), because the fixed names for the plants were introduced to the public only in 1918. The descriptions given in the two example texts below are very scanty, and without knowing the context and the plant species that can correspond to the names provided, the plant is hardly identifiable. But they show very exactly the representamens important for those plants, as they are conceived of in the community the informant comes from. It also determines the habitat of the plant. For the local population (farm, village), descriptions such as these provide sufficient guidance for finding the plants described: Stops the blood raavaru rohi [modification of iron grass] and heals the wound, if you chew it and stuff it into the wound. This plant grows by the side of the field, several small spreading branches on the leaf stalks, white blooms and a mildly offensive smell. H II 41, 187 (18) < Ridala khk. (1888).

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Another medicine for epilepsy grows on the meadow, people call them god and devils paw. This plant has two roots beneath, one white, the other black; these are like two paws. Pick up those roots, dry them, pulverise and take in. H II 55, 269/70 (4b) < Tarvastu khk. (1896) Although the texts do not emphasise it, the plants are certainly collected from one or a few specific location(s) well known to the informants. If they go somewhere else, they may not recognise either the place of growing or the plant itself. In unfamiliar surroundings, traditional knowledge can be used, but then a local inhabitant is required to re-introduce the plant. The following extract from an interview shows this mixed approach to collecting the plant: St. Johns wort is the only plant I pick from the wild. It grows 15 km from here, where my husbands childhood home was. He showed it to me. Some summers we drive there and collect some. All other plants I use, I cultivate. Author s collection < Pltsamaa khk. (2009) When this person plans the trip, sits in the car, and drives to the destination where the plant grows, she is the transported, but as soon as she reaches the place, she says that she starts to wander, she relaxes and enjoys collecting plants, since she knows for sure where the plant grows, and does not need to follow a map. Still, in some sense she will remain transported, given that she does not do all this in the course of her natural activities. The initial analysis of plants used by Estonians living outside Estonia shows that they mostly use trees, cereals and vegetablesbut only a few herbaceous plants growing literally within the courtyard. This supports the idea that Estonians have developed a kind of recognition strategy for the plant, suitable for stable environments with long-term settlement.

Case Study: Hypericum To illustrate further aspects of the importance of signs in the herbal landscape, and how they work, we will analyse a case example on one of the most popular plants in Estonian folk medicine, St. Johns wort Hypericum perforatum (Fig. 1). Although four different species of Hypericum grow in Estonia, and the second most widespread after H. perforatum is H maculatum (Fig. 2), almost all books now published in Estonian promote the use of the right species. The reason may lie in Soviet times, when the use of medicinal plants was officially restricted, and a socalled list of official plants existed which included St. Johns wort, but excluded other species. In folk medicine, on the contrary, the two most widespread species are quite indistinguishable, and both are used. Until 1919, when official Estonian plant names were still open to discussion, one of the names for Hypericum sp was naistepuna [womens red]. Hypericum shared this name with several other herbaceous plants that had similar appearance (like Lysimachia vulgaris, Fig. 3), similar habitat (like Origanum vulgare, Fig. 4), or red juice (Chelidonium majus, Fig. 5, actually has a similar appearance as well).

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Fig. 1 St. Johns wort Hypericum perforatum

Two texts from the same year show how relatively different characteristics can be reflected as one (the lilac juice of the flowers of Hypericum, and the orange juice of Chelidonium majus): Naistepuna [womens red]yellow, high stalk, when rubbed with fingers it appeared like blood. That was for stomachaches. Womens red was put into spirits. Women drink during menstruation. RKM II 317, 475 < Vastseliina khk. (1975). Break the stalk of naistepuna [women reds], from this place comes red juice, moisten scabs on your hand with it, this heals. RKM II 319, 405 (3) < Tartu l. (1975). Even though on the name level species are not always distinguished, their use is strictly differentiatedthe users themselves know exactly what plant they are talking about, and for them there seems to be no more need for explanation.

Fig. 2 Imperforate St. Johns wort Hypericum maculatum

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Fig. 3 Lysimachia vulgaris

Fig. 4 Origanum vulgare

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Fig. 5 Chelidonium majus

Red juice is a feature that in modern folk medicine, and the books based on it, is the most important representamen for Hypericum. Fingers are made red by the chemical compound hypericin, found in abundance in the blossoms and in smaller amounts in young leaves of all Hypericum species. No texts point to this feature until 1975. In the herbals, on the contrary, this feature appeared already in 1937, but originally this was meant to differentiate Hypericum species from other taxa called by the same name: The right plant excretes red juice when the blossoms and young leaves are rubbed, thats where its name comes from (Lts 1937, no emphasis added). The later literature uses this feature just as one of many representamens when describing H. preforatum (Tammeorg et al. 1972). Representamen as a Tool for Ethnobotanical Research The classical ethnobotanical fieldwork approach can be characterised by two keywords: detected taxon (voucher specimen, photo of the plant, plant DNA, etc.) and its position in folk practice (usage, name(s) and location within the folk classification). An optional example of the method of the interview is provided by (Collins et al. 2006: 349): Plant collections and the interviews were conducted on casual walks, during which the informants were asked to point out or describe any plant they considered to be important medicinal or poisonous plants. [] During interviews, indications of the medicinal plants use, part of the plant used,

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method of preparation, route of administration, habitat, growth form (i.e. tree, shrub, herb, epiphyte, vine, or grass), and the plants vernacular name were recorded. [] Voucher specimens were collected [] Such a method, used for documentation of traditional botanical knowledge, has been proven most effective, despite the time and money required compared to conducting interviews using photos or dried plant samples (Thomas et al. 2007). The latter two are also widely used for ethnobotanical fieldworks. When a professional botanist looks at a plant, he or she most likely sees specific features that help to detect the species, throughout the vegetation period. It seems that it is by default assumed that those interviewed recognise the plant in the same way as the professional ethnobotanist does by relying on many specific features documented in detail in the key books. But traditionally, a layperson looking for a medicinal plant sees only a few features of the plant, familiar to the interviewed. Those few features are very specific and in most cases help to avoid errors, but recognition requires that the person is acquainted with them, e.g. that someone has shown him the colour, that he has felt the roughness of the leaves, or smelled the plant. Although the plant does not have to be selected according to the doctrine of signatures to start with, it will most likely be remembered by it. For instance, plant signatures can serve as a mnemonic tool (sensu lato Bennett 2007). The signs (representamen(s)) assigned to the medicinal plants within particular cultures and climatic zones are guidelines for orientation within the patterned herbal landscape. They guide the selection and, to an even greater extent, the memorisation process, thereby helping to forward the knowledge tested by the elders to the younger generations. Interpretation of the pattern of herbal landscape leads us closer to understanding why some plants have been selected and others (just as effective) are abandoned in folk herbal use, and why different plants are being used in neighbouring regions with similar natural and cultural conditions.

Conclusions From the perspective of preservation of the tradition, we realize that the concepts of folk herbal practice are more important than mere facts and practices. We must conclude that it is important to preserve all the details related to plant identification as applied by indigenous practitioners. Most of the researchers know that identification of plants during ethnobotanical fieldwork may vary depending on the experiment conditions or how the plant is presented to the interviewed.4 It is important to start documenting the features by which the plant users themselves find and recognise the planthere, the Peircean sign model can serve as a methodological tool. Examples of different ways of perceiving the herbal landscape within the context of traditional and local societies may help researchers of modern folk medicine to recognise and identify a number of approaches to plant use. The Estonian example is outstanding only because it uses folklore written down by plant users themselves, and because it covers a period of more than a century. It starts with
4

As a plant growing within the landscape, as a fresh sample removed from its natural surroundings, the voucher specimen, or the photo of the plant or its part, to list the most common.

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a population relying almost solely on tradition, and ends with a population that mostly uses herbals as mediators to herbal knowledge. The methods used in this article can be applied when analysing perception of the herbal landscapes in any other spot of the worldnot least indigenous cultures untouched by literacy or high-tech cultures, given that these still need to use selfcollected plants. The mechanisms of recognition may vary among different nations (settled or nomadic, evergreen or polar), but the principle that the plant must first be perceived and recognised, and can only then be used, will remain the same.
Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the Governmental Research and Development program Estonian Language and Cultural Memory (EKKM09-84), EEA/EMP Grant 54 MP1RT08079N and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence CECT) for supporting this research. Our special thanks to Sabine Brauckmann, Kalevi Kull, Kati Lindstrm, Timo Maran and Morten Tnnessen for their useful comments on this manuscript.

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