Indigenous traditional knowledge on folk medicinal plants

Abstract

Traditional systems of medicine continue to be broadly practiced on many accounts. Population rise, inadequate supply of medicines, the prohibitive cost of treatments, side effects of many synthetic drugs and development of resistance to presently used medicines for infectious diseases have led to increased emphasis on the use of different parts of plant materials as a source of various medicines. About four billion people, (80% of the world population) presently use herbal medicine for primary healthcare, the World Health Organization has estimated. In our study, about 40 species of folk medicinal plant belonging to Apiaceae family was most frequently represented with four species followed by Asteraceae and Poaceae (three species each), Fabaceae, Rutaceae, Zingiberaceae, Moraceae, Lamiaceae and Myrtaceae (two species each), remaining 18 families had single species. These folk medicinal plants were found to be used for the treatment of different disorders by the rural people.