ETHNOBOTANICAL MEDICINAL PLANTS USED TO TREAT HUMAN AILMENTS BY LOCAL COMMUNITY IN BEDENO WOREDA, EAST HARARGHE, OROMIA, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

This study was to investigate medicinal plants used to treat Human Ailments by local community in Bedeno woreda,East Hararghe,Oromia,Ethiopia,The study was conducted in Bedeno Woreda, East Hararghe Zone of Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. The data were collected from traditional medicine practitioners using group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and field observations and analyzed using informant consensus factor, preference Ranking and fidelity level. A total of 30 medicinal plant species from 22 families and 28 genera were used as traditional medicine to treat human and animal diseases. The Euphorbiaceae was represented by 5 species,followed by solanaceae (3species),Myrtaceae ,fabaceae and Asteraceae (2 species each),followed by Acanthaceae(One species).Of the 34 species, 11(36.67%) were herbs, followed by trees (n=10, 33.33%).shrubs 6 (20%)and climbers (n=1, 3%).Studies showed that the use of leaves for medicinal purpose has little negative effect plants. However, the use of root (that is, the second mostly harvested plant part) for medicinal purpose leads to the destruction of mother plants that could affect the survival of the plant (Odera, 1997; Kalayu et al., 2013). The local community use different forms of remedy preparations to treat human ailments. The forms of preparations depend on the types of ailment treated. The common forms of preparations are crushing, pounding, powdering, squeezing, boiling, roasting and smashing. Pounding and grinding are the most frequently used methods of traditional medicine preparation in the study area identified by 45% and 20.4% of citations respectively. The prepared traditional medicines are applied in a number of methods, smashing accounted for 5(11.3 %) followed by boiling,Roasting and chewing accounted for 3(6.9% each).Local people should be encouraged to preservation, management and conservation of medicinal plant of their locality