Which Plants for What Ailments: A Quantitative Analysis of Medicinal Ethnobotany of Ile-Ife, Osun State, Southwestern Nigeria.

Yusuf Ola Mukaila,Olaniran Temitope Oladipo,Saheed Sabiu,Abdulwakeel Ayokun-nun Ajao,Ifeoluwa Ogunlowo,Songwen Tan

doi:10.1155/2021/5711547

Abstract

Studies on medicinal ethnobotany in rural areas and communities are important for documentation and generation of indigenous knowledge on the medicinal use of plants, as well as identification of new botanicals of pharmacological significance. This paper presents, for the first time, the quantitative ethnobotanical uses of medicinal plants in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The ethnobotanical survey was carried out by conducting semistructured interviews with 70 informants/collaborators. Data were analyzed using various quantitative indices, namely, Ethnobotanical Knowledge Index (EKI), Species Popularity Index (SPI), Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC), Cultural Importance Index (CII), Informant Consensus Factor (FIC), Fidelity Level (FL), and Species Therapeutic Index (STI). A total of 87 plant species belonging to 43 families were documented along with their medicinal uses. Euphorbiaceae is the most implicated family (9%) of the plants documented, and herbs (36%) were the prevalent life form while leaf (46%) was the most used plant part. Fevers are the most common diseases treated with the medicinal plants with 1012 use-reports, followed by skin diseases with 314 use-reports while the most common mode of preparation is decoction (37%). Telfaria occidentalis has the highest SPI and RFC (0.99, 0.99) while Khaya grandifoliola has the highest CII of 1.91. The community has EKI of 0.57 indicating a good knowledge of medicinal plants around them. Species such as Citrus aurantifolia, Khaya grandifoliola, and Ocimum gratissimum have high quantitative indices suggesting that they are effective in the treatment of various diseases in the community and therefore should be considered for pharmacological studies to validate their folkloric usages.

Highlights

A large percentage of the population of developing countries depends partially or completely on herbal or traditional medicine to treat an array of ailments [1,2,3]
There is no study on medicinal ethnobotany of Ile-Ife up to date. erefore, this study aims to (1) determine how and what plant species are used in the community to treat different ailments; (2) quantify the medicinal ethnobotanical knowledge in Ile-Ife with the view to provide baseline data for standard comparison on the future ethnobotanical study in other parts of the country; (3) use different statistical models to determine the most important plant species for particular aliment, the fidelity level, and agreement on the medicinal use of plant species for ailments in the community
Notwithstanding, we were directed to people perceived by the indigenes to be more knowledgeable and most of them were elderly people, and some of whom confirmed the poor attitude of the indigenes towards traditional healing. is was attributed to the constant campaign by the government for people to visit hospitals and not traditional healers. ey added that people only visit traditional healing homes if the ailment is thought to be spiritual

Summary

Introduction

A large percentage of the population of developing countries depends partially or completely on herbal or traditional medicine to treat an array of ailments [1,2,3]. E gradual disappearance of the traditional knowledge about plants due to oral transmission has been reported [6] while many medicinal plant species are reportedly at the risk of extinction due to indiscriminate exploitation of these valuable resources and the rapid expansion of human settlements [7]. All these culminated into the declaration of preservation and documentation of indigenous use of the plant as one of the seven cogent priorities for strategic action in plant science at the 19th International Botanical Conference in Shenzhen, China [8]. There is no study on medicinal ethnobotany of Ile-Ife up to date. erefore, this study aims to (1) determine how and what plant species are used in the community to treat different ailments; (2) quantify the medicinal ethnobotanical knowledge in Ile-Ife with the view to provide baseline data for standard comparison on the future ethnobotanical study in other parts of the country; (3) use different statistical models to determine the most important plant species for particular aliment, the fidelity level, and agreement on the medicinal use of plant species for ailments in the community

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion