Ethnobotany is a subfield of botany that studies the relationships between traditional societies and the plants in their environments. In its widest sense, ethnobotany is the study of how plants have shaped the worldviews and historical narratives of indigenous peoples, as well as how these people evaluate the efficacy of modern scientific knowledge. Ethnobotanical research may provide light on the complex relationships between plants and indigenous peoples, both in the past and the present. While modern society may look down on our ancestors as primitive and barbaric, they really helped us advance by teaching us how to utilize plants for food, medicine, chemicals, colors, wood products, textiles, and so on. As this study progressed, it became abundantly evident that the vast body of past studies on rural and tribal medicines in North Eastern India had just scratched the surface. There is still plenty to do and write down before it's all gone forever. Interviews and on-location observations were used extensively in this study's investigation. The information on medicinal plants and interview notes were written down in field notebooks. Traditional plant knowledge and the usage of curative wild herbs by the Marakwet people were the focus of a study. As a result of interviews with traditional healers and community people, a list of the plants' traditional names was developed. As much as sixty percent of plant names are same, it is clear that traditional names for medicinal plants are vanishing. Nearly all locals (94.8 percent) knew which traditional medicinal herbs were best for treating stomach problems, followed by diarrhea (70.7 percent), chest discomfort (65.5 percent), and typhoid (63.3 percent). Locals have a low knowledge index (23.6%) of curative plants, according to traditional healers.
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Journal of Ethnopharmacology
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The cross-cultural exchange of plant resources between societies across the globe added to the diversification of medicinal floras and pharmacopeias. Understanding how and why people select plants for medicine is still a common focus and topic addressed by the interdisciplinary research fields of ethnobotany, anthropology, ethnopharmacology, ethnomedicine, pharmacy, phytochemistry, and pharmacognosy. Here, we scrutinize recently reviewed ethnobotanical theories and hypotheses, which focus on the selection of plants as medicine by putting them into historical, ecological, and pharmacological perspective. We contextualize the availability, versatility, and diversification hypotheses, often presented in association with the inclusion of non-native species or imported herbal drugs into medicinal floras or ethnopharmacopeias. We also discuss the relevance of the concept of utilitarian redundancy and the apparency hypothesis, as well as the appropriateness of various statistical models applied for assessing non-random plant selection. It appears that the concept of utilitarian redundancy has been applied in a too reductionist and uncritical way, while the apparency theory is conceptually inconsistent and contradictive allowing for multiple interpretations. While the availability, versatility, and diversification hypotheses are not contextualized historically, they are used to explain retrospectively deliberate and well-documented human activities and cultural developments. Therefore, considering the cultural history and the pharmacology of plants is essential for the formulation of hypotheses related to the selection of plants as medicine and food. Ecological research questions applied to human-plant relationships should consider the historical impact of human culture as a framework and confounder to be integrated into the analysis.
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Journal of Traditional Medicine & Clinical Naturopathy
As the review conducting ethnobotany deals with the link amongst people, livestock, and the environment with plants and gives details how people of a particular culture and religious knowledge formulate use of medicinal plants. Indigenous knowledge is the accumulation of procedural knowledge, cultural practice and traditional knowledge as a result of many years. The term Ethnobotany was declared orally by John Hershberger in 1895. Medicinal Plants have been used as a vital source of preventive and healing to human and livestock ailment. Thus traditional medicine is the knowledge and practices of a particular community which used plants to diagnose and heal health problems of livestock and humans. Medicinal plants used in Ethiopia constituted 887 of plant species and 26 species are indigenous. The most effective plant species are identified and recorded to treat different humans and animal ailments. In Ethiopia 90% of the livestock population depends on medicinal plants for primary health care. Ethnoveterinary medicine is a traditional knowledge and practice to prevent and treat diseases encountered by livestock. In Ethiopia medicinal plant species are not equivalently distributed in each part of the country. In-situ conservation is a method of conserving and protecting medicinal plant species in their natural habitat. Whereas Ex-situ conservation is a method of conserving and protecting medicinal plant species without their natural habitats. However medicinal plants and traditional knowledge are declining at an alarming rate due to ecological shifts, deforestation, urbanization, loss of forests and woodlands, urbanization and agricultural expansion.
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