Determining endangered medicinal species of family Fabaceae of Bangladesh and their updated enumeration

Abstract

A rich family Fabaceae with high number of medicinal species, has been shown severe threat in context to Bangladesh as assessed in this work. Out of 169 total medicinal species, 32 species under 19 genera were identified and documented as endangered (EN) according to the criteria set by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Names of plants were gathered from standard medicinal and floristic research articles. Assessment was made by long term field investigation, collection and identification; examination of herbarium specimens and survey of relevant literature. Enumeration of these threatened taxa is provided with updated nomenclature and short annotation with data on medicinal value, recorded locality, global distribution, first and last authentic record and list of specimens available at different herbaria. Finally it has been suggested that the threatened medicinal plants are need to be proper conservation and management plans before it lost forever.