Abstract
An ethnobotanical study was conducted to document indigenous medicinal plants and their usage from knowledgeable and elderly persons in Razzar and Gadoon valley of Swabi and Allai and Tanawal valley of Hazara region of Pakistan during 2016-2019. Several systematic field visits and questionnaire surveys were carried out in selected sites of the study area to gather relevant information from the local community. Rapid assessment method was adopted for data collection by interviewing the local people having enough knowledge of medicinal plants use for treatment of different ailments. UV (UV) formula was applied to calculate the relative importance of medicinal plant species in each site of the study area. In the present study, 221 medicinal plants belonging to 105 families have been reported through 580 respondents (385 males, 138 females and 57 local health healer) from the Swabi and Hazara region. The main sources of herbal medicines were leaves (21%) followed by fruits (21%), seeds (17%), whole plants (14%), roots (9%), bark (9%), flowers (7%) and gum (2%). Mentha spicata L. and Berberis lycium Royle were reported with highest UV (UV) i.e. 0.92 and 0.68 in Razzar tehsil and Gadoon valley of Swabi, whereas Mentha longifolia L and Geranium wallichianum D were reported with highest UV i.e. (0.65) and (0.88) in Allai and Tanawal valley of Hazara region, respectively. It was concluded that Swabi and Hazara region is rich in medicinal plants species and associated traditional knowledge. Moreover, ethno-medicines have played significant role in the indigenous healthcare system of the study area. However, uprooting the entire plant for ethno-medicine is a big threat to conservation of medicinal plants diversity in the study area.
Highlights
Ethnobotany is the systematic study of the relations among people and plants (Sheng-Ji, 2001; Dubey and Sao, 2018)
Diversity of Medicinal Plants The present research work was based on the ethnic knowledge of most frequently used medicinal plants in Swabi (Razzar and Gadoon) and Hazara regions (Allai and Tanawal) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan
The present study emphasized on exploration and documentation of the indigenous knowledge of medicinal flora from the knowledgeable people of Swabi and Hazara regions of Pakistan
Summary
Ethnobotany is the systematic study of the relations among people and plants (Sheng-Ji, 2001; Dubey and Sao, 2018). Ethnobotany plays a crucial role in studying the effective link among biodiversity, social, and traditional systems According to report of the World Health Organization (WHO) 80% of the people in developing countries depend on indigenous medicinal plants for their basic healthcare because of insufficiency or absence of modern healthcare services (Calixto, 2005; World Health Organization, 2002). More than 25% medicines and drugs are prepared from medicinal plants globally (Malik et al, 2010). According to WHO about 252 drugs are crucial for essential healthcare and out of these 11% are obtained from medicinal plants (Rates, 2001)
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