Ethnobotanical study of plants used in the treatment of cutaneous infections in urban areas of the region of Grand Casablanca – Morocco

Abstract

This work aimed to inventory the medicinal plants used in traditional medicine to treat skin infections by the urban population of the Grand Casablanca region. For obtaining the data, frequent fieldtrips were made to the investigatedareas between March and Mayfrom 2012 to 2015. The study was conductedwith a questionnaire method using a survey sheet submitted at individual interview to a randomly chosen populationsample of 2000 persons. Socio-demographic characteristics of the interviewees, used medicinal plants, plant parts used, methods of herbal preparation and administration were then documented. Obtained data showed that among studied populations women and men accounted respectively for 82.70% and 17.30% and a diversity of medicinal plants, traditional and ethnopharmacological knowledge about the uses, preparations and applications maintained among the urban population of the Grand Casablanca region.The results identified 54 species belonging to 34 different botanical families with an important representation of the Lamiaceae family (8 species, 15% of the total inventory).The foliage is the most part of used plants (32.69%) and (22%) of remedies are used raw or mixed with henna (20%) to be applied locally (97%).