Phylogeny of medicinal plants depicts cultural convergence among immigrant groups in New York City

New York City (NYC) is a very diverse city in terms of immigrants that consequently bring to the city their traditional herbal knowledge. Medicinal plants have been used by different cultures worldwide, long before the development of pharmaceutical technologies. Studying the traditional uses of plants in a phylogenetic framework can be helpful to determine pharmacologically important plant families. A phylogeny of common medicinal plant species sold in NYC and traditionally used in Ayurvedic/Indian, Chinese, Latin/Caribbean, Middle Eastern and African cultures has been reconstructed. The traditional medicinal function of each plant was mapped on the phylogeny and analyzed. The results show that the plant families Lauraceae, Apiaceae, Lamiaceae, Rubiaceae, Fabaceae, Combretaceae, Malvaceae, Meliaceae and Burseraceae have disproportionate importance to traditional medicine, and they showed applications for gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, respiratory, musculoskeletal, gynecological conditions, as well as antibiotic agents. The phylogeny also demonstrated that different immigrant groups converge on related plants for similar ailments, implying independent discoveries of these plants' medicinal uses and underlying bioactivities that should be further explored scientifically.