Nadeem Ahmed1, Aqeel Mahmood2, Adeel Mahmood3, S S Tahir4, Asghari Bano5, Riffat Naseem Malik6, Seema Hassan7, Muhammad Ishtiaq8. 1. Department of Plant Sciences, Quiad-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan. 2. Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan. 3. Environmental Biology Laboratory, Department of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan. 4. Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, H-9, Islamabad, Pakistan. 5. Department of Plant Sciences, Quiad-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan. Electronic address: banoasghari@gmail.com. 6. Environmental Biology and Ecotoxicology Laboratory, Department of Environmental Sciences, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan. 7. Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan. 8. Department of Botany, Mirpur University of Science & Technology (MUST) Bhimber Campus, Bhimber Azad Kashmir, Pakistan.
Abstract
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ethnomedicinal reports are important for the discovery of new crude drugs from reported medicinal plants with high use value. The current study aimed to document the medicinal flora as well as medicinal knowledge of indigenous plants of local communities from Layyah district, Punjab Province, Pakistan. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Rapid appraisal approach (RAA), semi-structured interviews, group meetings with herbalists, landowners and local people having awareness about the medicinal action of plants were employed to collect the data. Use values (UV) and frequency of citation (FC) were calculated to check the relative importance of plants. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: The current ethnomedicinal study reported 125 medicinal plant species diversified from 106 genus belonging to the 43 different families and Poaceae was the predominant family over others with 16 reported medicinal plants. Wild herbaceous plants were the predominant over other life forms while among plant parts, leaves contributed 32% followed by the stem (27%), fruit and flowers (15%). Allium sativum exhibited the highest use vale (UV) 0.92 while the lowest UV was exhibited by Lasiurus scindicus which was 0.15. CONCLUSION: Local communities of district Layyah still have a strong faith on herbal medicines for basic healthcare needs. Indigenous plants having high UV and FC should be subjected to the detailed phytochemical investigations to explore new natural drugs.
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ethnomedicinal reports are important for the discovery of new crude drugs from reported medicinal plants with high use value. The current study aimed to document the medicinal flora as well as medicinal knowledge of indigenous plants of local communities from Layyah district, Punjab Province, Pakistan. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Rapid appraisal approach (RAA), semi-structured interviews, group meetings with herbalists, landowners and local people having awareness about the medicinal action of plants were employed to collect the data. Use values (UV) and frequency of citation (FC) were calculated to check the relative importance of plants. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: The current ethnomedicinal study reported 125 medicinal plant species diversified from 106 genus belonging to the 43 different families and Poaceae was the predominant family over others with 16 reported medicinal plants. Wild herbaceous plants were the predominant over other life forms while among plant parts, leaves contributed 32% followed by the stem (27%), fruit and flowers (15%). Allium sativum exhibited the highest use vale (UV) 0.92 while the lowest UV was exhibited by Lasiurus scindicus which was 0.15. CONCLUSION: Local communities of district Layyah still have a strong faith on herbal medicines for basic healthcare needs. Indigenous plants having high UV and FC should be subjected to the detailed phytochemical investigations to explore new natural drugs.
Authors: Muhammad Numan; Shumaila Naz; Rehama Gilani; Azhar Minhas; Haroon Ahmed; Jianping Cao Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2022-04-21 Impact factor: 4.614