PJB-2024-506
Local Knowledge of Wild Plants in Yousaf Baba Pass Hills, District Mohmand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, NW Pakistan
Bilal Khan
Abstract
The local communities in the remote mountainous regions of Pakistan possess a unique and rich treasure of local wild plant knowledge, a heritage that has been passed down through generations for centuries. This knowledge, often overlooked, is of paramount importance. The current study underscores the significance of documenting the wild ethnomedicinal plants and herbal practices of the local rural communities of Yousaf Baba Hills, District Mohmand, NW Pakistan. The aim was to document and explore the local uses of wild plants. Ethnobotanical data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using various quantitative indices. We documented 130 plant species (belonging to 110 genera and 49 families) used locally for food, medicine, veterinary, and handicrafts. Most of the quoted species were herbaceous ones. The majority of the residents of the study area use wild plant species to treat various human ailments, which were grouped into 13 major disease categories. We found that the majority of wild botanicals were mainly used for wound healing (21.4%), followed by digestive ailments (19.6%), skin diseases (15.3%) and antidiabetic purposes (4.7%).
The plant species ranked highest in terms of RFC values were Dodonaea viscosa (0.56), followed by Cymbopogon jwarancusa (0.37), Withania coagulans (0.35), Mentha longifolia (0.33) and Ajuga bracteosa (0.29) respectively. The lowest RFC value was observed in the case of Desmostacha bipinnata (0.05). The species with the highest use value reported by the informants is Withania coagulans (0.78), followed by Mentha longifolia (0.7), Fagonia indica (0.61), Caralluma tuberculata (0.52) and Olea ferruginea (0.5). Our comparative analysis with pre-existing ethnobotanical studies conducted in NW Pakistan showed little similarities, with some exceptions regarding the Swabi and Peshawar areas and Malakand Pass Hills, possibly due to similar ecological and cultural characteristics. Given the enormous potential for popularising local herbal remedies in the study area, this research underlines the critical need for further investigations to ensure a sustainable and safe utilisation of these herbal drugs.
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