Medicinal Plants Used By Traditional Healers Of Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

This study is aimed to document the indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants used by traditional healers of Punjab, Pakistan. The medicinal uses were documented by semi structured interview of the registered herbalists & relevant literatures were also reviewed. The data was collected by visiting the study area from Feb 2013 to August 2013. All traditional plants having therapeutic activity were crosschecked with existing literature on ethno botany. In our data about 150 indigenous plant species, which belongs to 55 families were documented along with their local names, part used and the use value of each species. This Data showed that highest number of plants used by local community belongs to Asteraceae Family. In our data Syzygium cumini (L.) Skeels has the highest use value that is 1 and the plants with lowest use value (0.2) are Eclipta alba (L.) Hassk, Ruellia tuberose L., Aerv javanica (Burm.f) juss. It is concluded from data that our study area possesses a variety of indigenous medicinal plants that are widely used by hakims, herbalists for primary health care of local community of Province Punjab, Pakistan.