IMR Press / FBS / Volume 15 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.31083/j.fbs1501001
Open Access Original Research
Diversity of Medicinal Plants Used by the Local Communities of the Coastal Plateau of Safi Province (Morocco)
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1 Environment and Health Team, Department of Biology, Polydisciplinary Faculty of Safi, Cadi Ayyad University, 46000 Safi, Morocco
2 Laboratory of Applied Botany, Agrobiodiversity Team, Faculty of Sciences, Abdelmalek Essaadi University, 93002 Tétouan, Morocco
3 Laboratory of Human Pathologies Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed V University in Rabat, 10106 Rabat, Morocco
4 Laboratory of Biochemistry, National Agency of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, 34025 Taounate, Morocco
5 Semey Branch of the Institute, Kazakh Research Institute of Processing and Food Industry, 050060 Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan
6 Laboratoire de Biologie des Ligneux et des Grandes Cultures, INRA USC1328, Orleans University, CEDEX 2, 45067 Orléans, France
7 Centro Tecnológico de la Carne de Galicia, Rúa Galicia Nº 4, Parque Tecnológico de Galicia, SanCibraodasViñas, 32900 Ourense, Spain
8 Área de Tecnología de los Alimentos, Facultad de Ciencias de Ourense, Universidad de Vigo, 32004 Ourense, Spain
9 Department of Life Sciences, National University of Kaohsiung, Nanzih, 811 Kaohsiung, Taiwan
10 Laboratory of Natural Substances, Pharmacology, Environment, Modeling, Health and Quality of Life (SNAMOPEQ), Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, 30000 Fez, Morocco
*Correspondence: lemhadri@gmail.com (Ahmed Lemhadri); hano@univ-orleans.fr (Christophe Hano)
Academic Editor: Giovanni DalCorso
Front. Biosci. (Schol Ed) 2023, 15(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.fbs1501001
Submitted: 13 June 2022 | Revised: 8 August 2022 | Accepted: 26 August 2022 | Published: 4 January 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Research on Medicinal Plants)
Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Traditional herbal medicine is still used for basic healthcare by a significant portion of the population in developing countries. This study aimed to explore the medicinal plant’s diversity and to document related traditional knowledge in the Safi region of Morocco. We used semi-structured questionnaires to interview 222 informants living in the study area. To perform data analysis, we used quantitative indices like use value (UV), family use value (FUV), fidelity level (FL), the relative popularity level (RPL), rank of order priority (ROP), and informant consensus factor (ICF). We reported the ethnomedicinal uses of 144 medicinal plants belonging to 64 families. According to the findings, the dominating families were Lamiaceae (17 taxa), Asteraceae (15 taxa), and Apiaceae (12 taxa). The most commonly utilized plant part (48%) was leaves. The decoction was reported as the main preparation method (42%). Highly cited plant species were Marrubium vulgare (UV = 0.56), Salvia rosmarinus Spenn. (UV = 0.47), Thymus serpyllum (UV = 0.32), and Dysphania ambrosioides (UV = 0.29). Papaveraceae (FUV = 0.26), and Urticaceae (FUV= 0.23), Geraniaceae (FUV = 0.17), Oleaceae (FUV = 0.17), Lamiaceae (FUV = 0.17) had the highest family use-values. Gastrointestinal disorders (88%), respiratory diseases (85%), and anemia (66%) have the greatest ICF values. This study reveals the indigenous people’s reliance on plant-derived traditional medicine to prevent, alleviate, and treat a broad range of health concerns. Our findings will provide a scientific basis for ethnomedicinal legacy conservation and further scientific investigations aimed at new natural bioactive molecules discovery.

Keywords
ethnobotany
traditional knowledge
ethnobotanical surveys
informant consensus factor
fidelity level
ailment
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