State of the Art of Medicinal Flora of the Caatinga: A Bibliometric Approach

Objective: The aim of this study was to understand the trajectory of scientific production in the Caatinga biome, with an emphasis on the context of medicinal plants. Theoretical Framework: This section presents the main concepts and theories that support the research. Notable among them are Bradford’s Law, the scientific mapping model by co-citation, and the principles of cultural ethnobotany, which provide a solid foundation for understanding the research context. Method: The methodology adopted for this research consists of a quantitative and descriptive bibliometric study, conducted in two stages: a systematic search in the Scopus and Web of Science databases (2003–2023) using Boolean combinations of English terms and “Caatinga”, manual screening of titles and abstracts, and removal of duplicates using RStudio. Data collection was carried out through automated extraction of article metadata and metrics, using RStudio scripts for filtering, deduplication, and corpus consolidation. Results and Discussion: The results revealed 179 articles, with publication peaks in 2011, 2018, and 2022; institutional leadership by UFPE; a core of publications in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology; key terms; and international collaborations. In the discussion, these findings are theoretically contextualized, with highlighted implications and limitations. Research Implications: The practical and theoretical implications include applications in ethnobotany and plant pharmacology, with impacts on biodiversity conservation, research policy development, phytotherapeutic advances, and the valorization of traditional knowledge. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature by bibliometrically mapping studies on medicinal plants in the Caatinga, supporting policies, phytotherapeutic development, and traditional knowledge systems.