Ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants utilised by Hani ethnicity in Naban River Watershed National Nature Reserve, Yunnan, China

Abstract

This study was conducted in the Naban River Watershed National Nature Reserve to identify and analyse knowledge and use of wild plants for medicinal purposes by Hani ethnicity and to search out culturally as well as economically important plant species and land use types. Ethnobotanical data was collected using freelisting interviews with randomly selected informants and semi-structured as well as field interviews. Plant specimens were collected, identified and deposited at the Herbarium of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Mengla, Yunnan Province, China. Data were analysed by use-reports, in addition important indices like relative frequency of citation (RFC) and cultural importance index (CI) were calculated. Smith's salience index was assessed using Anthropac 4.08. Consensus analysis was applied to measure informant agreement on plants used in different medicinal use categories. A total of 199 medicinal plants belonging to 73 families were recorded. Dominant families are Asteraceae (5.5%), Piperaceae and Verbenaceae (4.5%), Fabaceae, Liliaceae (4.0%) and Euphorbiaceae, Lamiaceae and Solanaceae (3.5%). Most culturally salient species from freelisting analysis were Dendrobium crepidatum Lindl. ex Paxt. (Smith's SI=0.41), Aristolochia sp. (0.306), Microstegium ciliatum (Trin.) A. Camus (0.129), Eupatorium coelestinum L. (0.119), Litsea martabanica (Kurz) Hook. F. (0.116) and Psidium guajava L. (0.103). The majority of the utilised species were collected from forest (51.9%), followed by fallow land (22.52%), arable fields (14.5%), and homegardens (11.08%). It became clear that the knowledge of medicinal plants is not homogenously distributed among Hani. Based on the percentage of collected medicinal plants from four habitat types, forest is the most important source of medicinal plants for Hani but when considering the cultural importance of species it seems that homegardens are slightly more important than other habitats.