Survey of ethnomedicinal plants used by indigenous people of Nerwa range, Chopal forest division, Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

The present study was conducted to document the traditional knowledge on ethnomedicinal plants used by people of Nerwa range, Chopal forest division of Himachal Pradesh. Information on these plants was collected from 105 persons including traditional healers of 13 different villages through semi-structured interview during 2017. A number of 56 ethnomedicinal plants was recorded from the region belong to 42 families consist of 13 tree, 13 shrub, 26 herb, one fern, two climber and one fungal species. The most commonly used family were Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae, Rosaceae, Acanthaceae, Capparaceae, Fagaceae, Ranunculaceae, Utricaceae and Zingiberaceae. Various plant parts such as roots, leaves, rhizomes, bark, and whole plant etc. were used for medicinal purposes. Of these, the most used part for medicinal purpose was roots (23%) followed by leaves (18%) and rhizomes (14%). It was observed that 54% informants interviewed did possess knowledge about the ethnomedicinal plants, which is clear manifestation of increasing inclination towards medicinal plants use. During the present study 56 medicinal plants were described in detail with their botanical name, local name, family, habits, parts used, habitat, mode of consumption and ethnobotanical usage.