Comparative Use Pattern of Medicinal Plant Species Among Eight Ethnic/Caste Groups of Benimanipur VDC, Nawalparasi District

Abstract

The present study has been undertaken in Benimanipur VDC of Nawalparasi district which is very rich in floral composition. No ethnobotanical study has been under taken previously in this area. This study mainly focused on documentation of traditional knowledge on the use of medicinal plants among eight major ethnic/caste groups in the study area. Ethnobotany is the science that deals with documentation of traditional knowledge of local people on the use of plants for a wide diversity of primary survival and aesthetic purposes. It investigates human interaction with plants and their ecosystem. The primary aim of present study was to document information about the medicinal practice of various plants to cure various ailments among eight major ethnic/caste groups viz. Brahman, Chhetri, Tharu, Magar, Newar, Kumal, Dalit and Gurung. The study also includes the multiple uses of medicinal plants among these ethnic/caste groups. Altogether 170 plants of medicinal values belonging to 138 genera and 64 families have been recorded from the study area among which Leguminosae was found most frequent i.e. including 18 plant species. Most of the medicinal plants found in study area were of wild occurrence. These plant species were evaluated in terms of parts use category, habit category, mode of use category, disease use category, ethnographic validity with their medicinal use pattern and multiple uses, number of use report, and number of taxa use to treat different ailments. These medicinal plants were documented with their scientific name, local name, community name (available), English name, family, form, category of plants, flowering, fruiting, distribution in Nepal, distribution in world, and collection number of some collected specimens. The people of study area were found mostly dependent upon forest and forest products. Due to their long experience and practices on utilization of forest products, they had acquired rich knowledge about use of plants for various purposes. Especially local faith healers, Guruwas, Lama and elderly people had rich knowledge about traditional use of medicinal plants. Women of the study area had rich knowledge on use of plants for different purposes. In this study Dalit were found to have high knowledge on medicinal use of plants in comparison with other ethnic/caste groups while Tharu had high knowledge about multiple uses of these medicinal plant in comparison to other ethnic/caste groups. Among 170 medicinal plants, 49 species of medicinal plants were used by all ethnic/caste groups to treat different diseases/disorders and 12 common plants were used to treat 9 common diseases/disorders by all ethnic/caste groups. The total medicinal plants studied were used to treat 122 ailments which were categorized into 19 disease usage category in which 17 usage category had already given by Cook (1995) and 2 are additional usage category in this study. In this study, data were analyzed by using two methods, the first one is Ethnographic Validity (EV) and the second one is Informant Consensus Factor (ICF). In the first method of data analysis, 10 plants had very high validity (>300) for different diseases/disorders among them the plants Aloe vera has high ethnographic validity for burns i.e. 416.94. Similarly 25 plants have high ethnographic validity, 29 plants (with 3 repeated plant species) have medium validity and 702 plant species (with most repeated plant species) have low validity. Out of 64 plant species that have high ethnographic validity, comparative study with previous finding was done of only 22 plant species. In ICF method ‘Animal problem’ (ANP) and ‘Poison’ (POI) both had highest F

value i.e. 0.87 in comparison with remaining 17 usage categories. Among 19 usage category 9 usage category had F value ≥ 0.70. 15 plant species are need to conserve among total plant species studied in Benimanipur VDC in which 4 plant species are already in threat list in Nepal. They are Alstonia scholaris, Asparagus racemosus, Curculigo orchioides and Rauvolfia serpentina which were kept in threat category by IUCN and CAMP while Rauvolfia serpentine is kept by CITES and MFSC as conserving plant. ic Key words: Ethnobotany, diseases/disorders, ethnographic validity, Informant Consensus Factor, Guruwas, Lama