Medicinal Plant Use Among the Congolese (Democratic Republic of Congo) Community in Belgium

When the biocultural landscape differs from the country of origin, migrants develop strategies to maintain ethnobotanical habits and/or adapt them to the new environment. We conducted 30 semistructured interviews with people of Congolese descent to investigate medicinal plant use among the Congolese community (Democratic Republic of Congo) in Belgium. Participants were selected through snowball sampling and purposive sampling. We collected data on the plants used, administration methods, origins of used plants, and methods of obtaining plant material and recorded the use through free-listing. Our analysis focused on plant use, medicinal use values, geographic distributions, and plant obtention strategies. We recorded 86 plant species from 41 plant families used to treat 112 conditions. The species with the highest medicinal use value were Zingiber officinale Roscoe., Citrus limon (L.) Burm. f., and Lippia multiflora Moldenke. Plant species with the highest use values were brought from Congo to Belgium by the participants or their acquaintances. The used plants were mainly obtained through formal and informal trade.. The effects of urbanization and globalization were visible in the high diversity of plants from a wide range of geographical origins. However, the large proportion of plant species with a global or pantropic species distribution revealed that the set of used plant species is subject to biotic homogenization.