An ethnobotanical study of the indigenous medicinal knowledge by the rural people in different villages of Agaya Narah Gram Panchayat, West Bengal, India

Abstract

This study aims to document the ethnobotanical knowledge of rural people from different villages of Agaya Narah Gram Panchayat, West Bengal, India. A total of 67 informants from nine ethnic communities were interviewed, and the collected information was examined qualitatively and quantitatively using various ethnobotanical indices such as use value (UV), informative consensus factor (Fic), fidelity value (FL) and Jaccard index (JI). We documented 32 plants belonging to 21 families and 32 genera. The most represented family is Apocynaceae (6 species), and the most used plant part is the fruit. The quantitative analysis revealed that the UV of the plants ranged from 0.12 to 0.66, while the Fic was found to be the highest (1.0) for worm disease, eye disease, and arthritis. Thirteen plants were found to possess a 100% FL value for different diseases. A high degree of similarity index (JI value) was calculated when compared with a study reported from the Jatasankar Region, Gujarat, India. The inhabitants of the study area have sound knowledge of the medicinal use of plants, which needs to be further investigated through systematic research.