Ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants used for the treatment of malaria by tribal communities of Anuppur district, Central India

Abstract

Medicinal plants are abundant sources of bioactive secondary metabolites and play a crucial role in the treatment and management of various diseases. The present research involves the documentation of ethnomedicinal plants used by tribal people residing in the district of Anuppur, Madhya Pradesh, Central India. To obtain data on ethnomedicinal plants, a semi-structured interview schedule was conducted with the local tribal people, who have engaged in the folk practice and use ethnomedicinal plants to treat malaria disease. The obtained data were analyzed using statistical parameters like Relative Frequency Citation (RFC), Relative Importance Index (RI), Frequency Citation (FC), and Jaccard Coefficient of Similarity (JCS) etc. In the present study, a total of 44 respondents were exclusively interviewed, who revealed information about the medicinal plants used to treat malaria. A total of 24 medicinal plants, belonging to 20 plant families were documented, in this study. In conclusion, the majority of plants used by the tribal communities were used in combination form (24%) rather than a single plant. In order to conserve this important traditional knowledge, documentation is necessary which may provide new lead(s) for drug discovery in the future. Thus, the present research aims to demonstrate and document the importance of folk medicine in the study region as a novel source of anti-malarial drug(s).