This project was initiated in April 2015, and it received Brazilian legal permissions: 1) to access the area of the Serra do Mar State Park (COTEC no. 260108–009.510/2015); 2) to collect plants and access Serra da Bocaina National Park (SIBIO no. 51199-1/2015); 3) to obtain prior informed consent and access traditional knowledge (SISGEN no. A648D14); and 4) to be conducted by the Universidade Federal de São Paulo, (Research Ethics Committee approval no. 028525/2016). The residents authorized the use of their images in the video. It took 17 months to obtain all of these permits, and data collection began only after all of the permits were obtained, in September 2016.

Bairro do Cambury (BC) [23°21’26.12”S and 44°46’10,46”W], is located in Ubatuba city, São Paulo (Brazil). It is inside the Parque Estadual Serra do Mar (PESM)–Núcleo Picinguaba and Parque Nacional Serra da Bocaina (PNSB), between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states. Thus, as a way to characterize the study area, a map of the region where the present study was carried out is presented. One of the authors (Sauini, T) prepared the map (Fig 1) using the free software QGIS (available at: www.qgis.org), using a collection of spatial data from the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (available at: http://acervofundiario.incra.gov.br/acervo/acv.php) and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (available at: https://mapas.ibge.gov.br/bases-e-referencial/bases-cartograficas/ digital meshes); and using the geographic coordinates reference system "sirgas 200" (Geocentric Reference System for the Americas).

This region remained isolated until 1970 due to its remote location and geography, but the construction of the BR 101 road aided the movement of residents, tourists and real estate brokers, who were attracted by the captivating landscape of the area [20]. People belonging to this traditional community are a mix of indigenous people, Afro-Brazilians and Europeans. According to the ITESP [21], 300 people distributed in 50 families live in this area, there is a school that provides basic education, and the nearest health service is located 25 km from the community. People in urgent medical situations or in need of specific treatments must go to the Hospital Santa Casa de Ubatuba, located 50 km from BC. The predominant religions in this area are Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism.

During five consecutive meetings held between 2015 and 2016 the desired aims were discussed with representatives of the community, the president of the Quilombo do Cambury Association and some community residents who were interested in participating in this research. It was decided that recording the culture would be conducted through a video and a booklet containing information about their traditional practices, particularly about the plants that are used for different purposes: shipbuilding, handicrafts, medicines. This article focused only on medicinal plants uses.

Fieldwork was conducted over 80 days between September 2016 and January 2018. In the field, three participants, the local partners, were motivated to record their traditional knowledge as local researchers. They participated in all of the steps of research development, from objective definition to decisions made about data recording and analysis and the presentation to the community. To train local partners interested in conducting the research, the researchers from São Paulo Federal University (Universidade Federal de São Paulo) and botanists at the Herbário Municipal (PMSP) offered courses about 1) plant collection and 2) conducting interviews about knowledge of medicinal plants using unstructured interviews [22]. These courses were conducted informally in the community, verbally and demonstratively, for local partners with different levels of education (from illiterate to high school graduates). Since they talk Portuguese, the courses were conducted in this language. Thus, local partners, along with researchers from the university, were responsible for conducting the ethnobotanical survey by selecting and interviewing specialists in medicinal plants, and for collecting the plants. A drying oven was installed in the fieldwork area to dry plants, allowing the community to follow all of the processes of plant identification and deposition.

The selection of interviewees was performed by local partners because they know all of the inhabitants of BC, including medicinal plant specialists. Initially they appointed the older members of the community considering that they would have a comprehensive knowledge of the traditions of the local culture, transmitted by their parents and grandparents. Then, they selected some of the residents for the interviews based on the criterion: “an expert in the use of plants”. According to Johnson [3], participant selection in participatory research is similar to sample selection in a survey—it determines what information is gathered, how robust the results will be and to what extent they can be extrapolated. The interviews were scheduled, and each visit lasted approximately 60 minutes. Furthermore, each interviewee was visited 4 to 6 times. To record local knowledge, of medicinal plants, the local partners conducted unstructured interviews [22]. Personal details (age, sex, ethnicity, source of knowledge) and ethnobotanical data (therapeutic use, part used, formula, recipe, route of administration, dosages, and restrictions on use) were recorded using two forms. University researchers followed local partners during all of the interviews and during the entire process of plant collection, providing any academic or scientific support required. Plants were collected by the drying method [23], botanical data were recorded (habit, type, colour of flower and fruiting) and photographs were obtained, aiding the taxonomical identification of plants. The location of the sample collection was recorded using GPS (global positioning system). Data were complemented with participant observations and field diaries [22, 24] by one of the university researchers (co-author TS). With all of the forms completed and the knowledge of the interviewees recorded, the same researcher, along with the local partners, visited the interviewees’s houses to check the data and recollect plants if necessary.

The data obtained were organized as a booklet and a video. During video recordings, the interviewees were asked about the use of plants, beliefs, the presence of the park in this area, the impacts on the community caused by road construction, and the environment and conservation questions, as well as their concerns regarding the heritage that will be left for future generations.

A workshop called “Know-how Exchange” was organized with the participation of the local partners, interviewees, and researchers. This meeting was important for checking, for the last time, the obtained data and discussing the format of the booklet and the video. To create a final version, researchers from the university brought booklets previously published by other authors during other projects, as a starting point for deciding which content to add to their booklet. The most commonly used plants in the community were selected by the interviewees to be published in the booklet.

Three community members womans with age that ranged enter 40 e 55, and resident in the area for more 20 years. These participated (co-authors CC, MAS and MASG) individuals who showed interest in conducting the ethnobotanical study during the first meetings held by the project's coordination in the community. They played an active fundamental role in the development of this work in all of the steps, from the objective definition to the recording, analysis and publication of the data. According to Grasser et al. [25], an ethnobiological survey should allow for the participation of the community at all steps and provide access to all of the collected data in order to bring benefits to the local communities.

Paniagua-Zambrana et al. [26] showed that a combination of participants and interviewers from the local community itself could be an interesting strategy for obtaining data in ethnobotanical studies. Based on the collaboration of the local participant, in addition to being a facilitator and / or mediator in the fields, it can make it possible to collect data that are more contextualized with local perceptions.

However, in some cases local partners may have difficulties in some research sensitive data and/or they could have relationships problems. This fact can bring fragility to the data and therefore integration with external researchers can facilitate in this case.

It is important to integrate the knowledge of local partners with academic researchers, since it values and records their results from a local perspective (from within the community) that is, the emphasis is on the emic approach [27], in complementarity with local knowledge and academic. In this way, it also reinforces research as having an ethical approach, according to recent studies focusing on collaborative research that seeks to tell the history of biodiversity and its potential for use, not only to catalogue species [28; 29].

In this sense, it was important to consider the following points: 1) This study was performed based on the field efforts of residents (local partners) and researchers from the university, and the residents were conducting an academic study for the first time; 2) The data collected were the results of interviews with nine residents living in BC (qualitative research) with the local partners choosing who and how many would be interviewed. 3) During the study, training for the collection of ethnobotanical data was offered to local partners, to align the methodologies to be performed in the data collection. Such activities counted as research time, an unusual fact in ethnobotanical and / or ethnopharmacological research. 4) For the local partners involved in the study—“time” was different from that of urban society, a fact that caused difficulties throughout the absorption of concepts during the ethnobotanical study and in data collection. 5) Local partners perform other daily activities that guarantee their livelihoods and must reconcile these activities with fieldwork. Therefore, the data obtained here are very robust and integrated with local perceptions, compared to other ethnobotanical studies developed in traditional communities of the Atlantic Forest [17, 30, 31], Amazonian forest [32, 33], scrublands of the Brazilian Cerrado [34], and Pantanal wetlands [35]. In this sense, 82 medicinal plants were registered in this study, and 148 other plants with different ethnobotanical uses, such as: food, shipbuilding, construction, combustion, dyes and handicrafts, were registered by residents in this same survey but the data are actually unpublished.

During this work, at this deeper level of participatory research, there were some limitations and facilities, according to the expectations of the university researchers and the routines and the way of life of each participant in the community. Initially, for example, a small group of people were interested in participating, but few of them actually involved. Among these people, there was a difficulty in relation to the time required to perform the research since as each one had their daily routine and tasks, in addition to caring for their families, business and farms, in order to obtain daily living. Another difficulty was in relation to communication with the interviewees, who at the beginning of the field work had no internet or telephone signal in the community. Thus, the work was often hampered due to the unavailability of the interviewees.

Three of the local partners were female and were 39–50 years old. One of them had been born in BC, and the other two had been born in the Ubatuba region; they had moved to BC after marrying local residents. They are an artisan, a cook and a merchant, and none of them completed their high school education. One of them did not know to write and needed help from the university researchers during the recording of traditional knowledge.

All of them believe that this record is important “to guarantee that the knowledge and traditional practices of the culture are not lost over the years, as many others have already been lost”, as explained by one of the interviewees. The local partners were responsible for explaining to the interviewees the project and the importance of recording traditional knowledge for the residents about the plants, as discussed in the community meetings that preceded the beginning of the fieldwork.

Among the nine interviewees with specialized knowledge of medicinal plants, seven were male (77.8%), and two were female (22.2%); they were between 35 and 50 years old, and four of them were older than 50. All of them had incomplete fundamental educations (without completing high school), among them were a fisherman, a cook, farmers, a bricklayer and a craftsman.

Most of them (five) had been born in BC and had parents and relatives that were also born there. The main route of knowledge acquisition was oral because they lived together with ancestors who used natural resources as daily practices, as observed in other traditional communities [36, 37].

Concerning religiosity, a strong influence of evangelical Christianity on the local culture was observed, and medicinal practitioners and/or symbolic aspects related to the Catholic religion and/or Afro-Brazilian religions, which are common in Brazilian cultures, were not found. These findings have been observed in different communities in Brazil. Zank and Hanazaki [38] observed a diminished number of healers in the Quilombola area of Santa Catarina state (in the municipalities of Garopaba—Morro do Fortunato and Aldeia communities and the Paulo Lopes—Santa Cruz community). The spread of evangelism could have some impact on traditional treatment because this religion has certain taboos about the traditional use of plants and religious practices performed by Afro-Brazilian and indigenous communities [39]. In ethnic studies conducted by Rodrigues [32] and Santos et al. [33] among Amazonian River dwellers in the Tapiira community, Unini River, 10 healers (including midwives, prayers and mediums) with Catholic and Afro-Brazilian influences were recorded in this area in 1995, and all of the healers used prayers during healing practices. In contrast to the findings reported in 1995, studies conducted by the same team in 2012 showed no healers in the community because the local religion had been changed by evangelism (data not published).

The dynamics of religious change over time in some places are comprehensible; however, they cause concerns when they affect and compromise the collective local health, as is occurring in the Amazon, where access to conventional medicine is limited.

Despite the transformation that the community is undergoing in BC, some characteristics of traditional practices persist, such as the tradition of collecting plants during a specific phase of the moon to avoid plant parasites and to not compromise their use. The influence of the moon was also observed and discussed in other studies; for example, Jovchelevich and Camara [40] wrote about the moon phases and their influence on carrot (Daucus carrotta) yields. The study showed variations in the new and full phases, and the results obtained were better when sowing occurred during the new moon.

Eighty-two species of plants were indicated for 55 therapeutic uses, and 90 recipes (Table 1). They were grouped, with the aid of local partners, into 12 categories of medicinal use: circulatory system (20 species and 9 uses), gastrointestinal system (13 and 11), respiratory system (13 and 5), central nervous system (12 and 8), inflammatory process (10 and 6), genitourinary system (7 and 4), skin diseases (4 and 3), parasitic diseases (4 and 2), osteomuscular system (3 and 3), other uses (2 and 2), endocrine system (1 and 1) and the ocular system (1 and 1) (as seen in Fig 2 and Table 2). Previous studies have also found that the two first categories, which had the largest numbers of uses above, were the most frequent in other communities, such as the Atlantic forest community [31, 41–44]. The large number of plant species indicated for gastrointestinal disorders in these studies could be associated with the absence of basic sanitation, which can account for a variety of diseases linked to the faecal-oral route, since the majority of the therapeutic uses of this category refer to the treatment of stomach ache. The samples were identified by botanists according to the nomenclature of the site “Flora do Brasil 2020 (under construction” and available at: www.floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br) for native Brazilian species and by the site “The Plant List” (available at: www.theplantlist.org), for exotic species.

Other studies developed in traditional communities of the Atlantic forest have also recorded large numbers of medicinal plants directed for treating respiratory system diseases [31, 43], and according to Almeida and Albuquerque [48], this outcome occurred because respiratory diseases are more common in this biome and because their symptoms are clearer, thus favouring the identifications of these diseases and the identification of these plants.

Fifty-four species (65.8%), indicated with the asterisk in Table 1, are native to the Atlantic forest, while the others are exotic or naturalized or have not been fully identified, demonstrating the floral diversity of the region, which was influenced by European and African people during the civilizing process during the colonial period in Brazil. Some ethnobotanical/ ethnopharmacological studies developed in Brazil have shown a higher representation of native species among Afro-Brazilians living in the Pantanal wetlands [35], among the 31 species indicated, 25 were native. Among Indians living in the Cerrado [34], all 138 indicated species were native to the biome, and among river dwellers, 66% of 120 recorded species were native to the Amazon forest [32]. In contrast other studies developed in Brazil have shown a higher representation of non-native species among traditional communities living in the Atlantic forest [17, 49–52], in the Amazon forest [53] and in Caatinga [54]. Thus, there are no patterns to the plants used in traditional medical systems, independent of the biome or the human group. Regarding the Atlantic forest, one possible reason for this lack of a pattern is that plants from Europe, Africa and Asia were introduced and popularized in traditional communities of this biome since colonial times, along with the cultural changes and ethnic miscegenation that occurred over five centuries [49].

The four species marked with ** in Table 1 are native to the Atlantic forest and considered to be endangered or vulnerable according to the ICMBio (Instituto Chico Mendes Biodiversity Conservation) database [46], and of these, the one, marked with ***, is considered threatened according to the Brazilian Flora Red Book [47]. In addition, the four marked with ◆ are exotic and invasive.

In Table 1, therapeutic uses are presented in italics and in the Portuguese language according to emic terms as indicated by the interviewees, as well as by their respective etic terms, for example: machucadura—haematoma. This community has access to conventional medicine in hospitals in the municipalities of Ubatuba and Paraty, located 49,5 and 29 km away, respectively, indicating that conventional medicine is commonplace in the daily lives of residents. When a therapeutic use referring to any of the indicated plants was presented with an emic term by the interviewees, the university researchers consulted the local partners and correlated the emic and ethical terms accordingly. Participant observations and field diaries [22, 24] were recorded by the co-author (TS) to capture the perceptions of interviewees and local partners regarding their relationships with plants, emic terms for the plants, and their explanations and other observations that were pertinent to understanding those relationships. These methods and techniques sought to complement the quality of the data collected by the local partners.

In the column “Therapeutic Use”, two types of information are observed: information concerning the possible activities of plants (digestive, for example) and information concerning the symptoms and/or diseases that they treat (hepatitis, for example). Because this study used terms for the categorization of medicinal use and they were indicated by the interviewees, we decided to keep them in Table 1 to diminish the chance of misinterpretation.

The majority of interviewees gave names to species with the same popular name and used them for the same therapeutic purposes, such as sucupira (Andira franxinifolia Benth) which was indicated by two interviewees for knee trouble, and the traditional recipe was the same. However, there were two cases in which the same plant was indicated for two different conditions: saião [Kalanchoe crenata (Andrews) Haw.] indicated to heal bone fractures and pneumonia, and ferromicina (Hypoestes phyllostachya Baker), indicated for haematoma and for pain relief and inflammation.

These 90 recipes were prepared as teas via infusion or decoction or as alcoholic beverages, syrups, and applications, via chewing and maceration, with decoction (56.7%) being the most commonly used method, followed by maceration (14.5%). Ingestion was the most cited route of administration (77.8%). Ethnobotanical studies conducted by Silva et al. [30] and Tuler [55] found that decoction was the most common method of preparation for medicinal plants. This finding was also observed in other studies, which also suggested that decoction and infusion are used because the methods are fast, easily accessible and inexpensive [44, 56, 57].

Different parts of plants were used in recipes however, leaves were the most commonly used part of plants employed in medicinal recipes (72.2%), followed by fruits (6.7%), among others. The predominance of the use of leaves can be related to the relative ease of obtaining them; their use was verified in other studies and is considered an important way to collect plant material since harvesting leaves is less harmful to the plant than harvesting other plant material [30, 29, 36, 55].

In most of the recipes, a single plant was part of the recipe, with or without other complements, such as salt, sugar, honey, lemon, alcohol, vinegar, milk and even animal parts. Sugar was used to prepare syrups, such as in the recipe for poejo (Mentha pulegium L.) or as sweeteners of drinks and teas (prepared by infusion). Honey was considered the best way to sweeten medicines because it is considered “natural” and less aggressive to the organism, in addition to being found in the backyards of the residents. Lemon, honey and guaco (Mikania cf. glomerata Spreng.) were used in recipes to treat flu. Alcohol was usually used to prepare alcoholic beverages in the form of “cachaça” (an alcoholic beverage). Milk was used as one complement for softening the taste of some plants, such as saião [Kalanchoe crenata (Andrews) Haw.], which is indicated to treat pneumonia. There were few recipes with more than one plant (poly-recipes), such as the following: leaves of pitanga (Eugenia uniflora L.) and leaves of goiaba (Psidium guajava L.) to treat nausea and stomach troubles and the leaves of cajuna [Aegiphila integrifolia (Jacq.) Moldenke], caroba (Jacaranda puberula Cham.) and cinco-folhas [Cybistax antisyphilitica (Mart.) Mart.] to treat scabies.

Finally, parts of animals were indicated in some recipes, as in the case of a recipe to treat athlete's foot that employs chicken fat and maria-pretinha (Cyrtocymura scorpioides (Lam.) H.Rob). The other 12 animal parts were either associated or not with medicinal plants in recipes; a complete list will be available in a future publication.

The concomitant use of synthetic drugs and medicinal plants was not observed. The interviewees stated that it is not necessary to obtain medicaments in drug stores because they have all of the medicines that they need for daily use in their backyards. It is also important to emphasize the distance between the community and the closest cities (Ubatuba and Paraty), the difficulties related to transport from BC to urban centres, and the price of synthetic drugs. Conversely it has been considered easy to cultivate the cited plants and consequently to yield the drugs derived from these medicinal plants, which in most cases, have superior effects compared with their synthetic counterparts, according to the interviewees.

In this community, it was observed that biomedicine complements traditional medicine only when the disease is more aggressive, forcing the resident to go to the hospital.

During the interviews photographic and video recordings were obtained of the interviewees, and plant collection and other fieldwork was conducted. A video was produced (Quilombola Heritage–available in YouTube, with subtitles in Portuguese and English, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxpOWv3u6RQ&t=2524s).

The booklet entitled “Quilombo do Cambury, Saberes e Tradições” (Cambury Quilombo, Knowledge and Traditions) contain information about medicinal and non-medicinal plants used in the community (for handicrafts, dyes, construction, etc.); in addition, it illustrates the opinion of residents about the importance of this record and conservation of the environment to future generations. The booklet is available to download (https://issuu.com/thasauini/docs/livreto_cambury_thamara_final_13.06). In the booklet 10 species of medicinal plants were included because they are more relevant to the community according to the interviewees and local partners. Information regarding the possibly toxic effects of these plants was added if it was found in the scientific literature, thus promoting the union between science and community knowledge. In addition, other relevant species used in ethnobotany categories (food/seasoning, handicrafts, construction, among others) were included, which will be the subject of another paper.

In addition to virtual versions of the video and booklet, physical copies of each were delivered to the community, where they are freely available to all members of the community, allowing the knowledge to be shared with the successors, helping to reinforce the importance of the knowledge of the community members and the roles of local researchers.