Assessment and Identification of Medicinal Plants at Habro, Gemechis and Hawi Gudina Districts in East Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Table 4: Species diversity of medicinal plants in West Hararghe zone.

Table 6:  Number of Medicinal plants in the districts.

Table 7: Jaccards and Sørensen similarity index of plant species between the three Districts.

Table 8: Plant parts used to treat human and livestock ailments.

Table 10: Number of medicinal plants treat human, livestock and both human & livestock disease.

Table 2: Human and livestock ailments treated in West Hararghe Zone.

Figure 3: Source (habitat) of medicinal plants.

Figure 4: Route of admistration.

This was indicated that a good practice for the conservation of medicinal plants through cultivation. The study revealed that there were a number of threats that affect the medicinal plants in the study area. The threats include agricultural expansion (47.7%) followed by deforestation (32.7%) and overgrazing (12.1%) (Table 3). The study indicated that many of the medicinal plants are harvested from the forest (53.2%) followed by home-garden (38.8%) and the other accounts for (7.9%). This indicated the effort to conserve medicinal plants in the district was observed to be poor. Some traditional practitioners have started to conserve medicinal plants by cultivating at home-gardens, though the effort was minimal. Traditional beliefs in the area also have their own unintentional role in conservation and sustainable utilization of medicinal plants. Giving conservation priority for identified threatened medicinal plants, promoting in-situ and ex-situ conservation of medicinal plants in West Hararghe Zone helps to conserve the fast eroding medicinal plants of the study area. Most of the infor0mants (81.02%) say there is medicinal plants’ conservation in their area where home-gardens, is the most conservation niche (48.7%) of the medicinal plants followed by forest (39.3%). In West Hararghe Zone various factors that considered as main threats for medicinal plants were recorded by interviewing the informants. The major factors claimed were human being (67.65%), natural disaster (21.57%) and animals (10.78%). Other research on threats to medicinal plants used by Kereyu pastoralists in Ethiopia [20] indicates similar investigation.

Diversity of medicinal plant species and healers’ indigenous knowledge

A total of 162 medicinal plant species were used by local people of the West Hararghe Zone to treat various livestock and human ailments. Ocimum lamifolium 95 (5.89%) was the frequently used plant species having highest Familiarity index (FI=0.67), followed by Cissampeclos pareira 88 (5.45%) (FI=0.62), Otostegia integrifolia 64 (3.97%) (FI=0.45), Lepidium sativum 56(3.47%) (FI=0.40), and Withania somnifera 49(3.04%) (FI=0.35) (Table 4). The total number of plant treatments cited in this study could indicate that the general culture of ethno-medicinal knowledge secrecy was slightly lower with few exceptions [21] compared to some ethno-medicinal studies in other parts of the country [22,23]. On average a female respondents reported 3.55 medicinal plant species; while a male reported 1.33 medicinal plant species. Medicinal plants were distributed across 70 families (Table 5). The family and Fabaceae were represented by 15 species (9.26%), Asteraceae 14 species (8.64%)Lamiaceae 10 species (6.17%), Cucurbitaceae 6 species(3.70%), Euphorbiaceae, Myrtaceae, Rosaceae, Rutaceae and Solanaceae represented by 5 species (3.70%) each and the other 61 families consist of 1-4 representative species 92 species (56.79%). From 162 collected medicinal plants 16(9.88) were found only in Hawi Gudina, 26(16.05) only in Habro, 21(12.96) only in Gemechis, 60 (37.04) were commonly found in 3 districts, 13(8.02) in only Hawi Gudina and Habro, 10(6.17) in only Hawi Gudina, and 16(9.88) only in Habro and Gemachis. In other words 99 MPS were found in Hawi Gudina 115 found in Habro and 107 from Gemechis district (Table 6).

Species Similarity between Survey Sites

Sorenson and Jaccard’s similarity index among the three districts were calculated and the results ranged from 67.96% to 68.47% for Sorenson and 61.79 % to 65.42 % for Jaccard’s it was higher than 0.5 which showed significant similarity/even distribution of species among the sampling areas (Table 7). Sørensen similarity index it gives more weight to the species that are common to the samples rather than to those that only occur in either sample [24]. The most similar pair was Habro and Gemachis districts according to Sørensen similarity index. Higher values of Jaccard`s similarity coefficient indicates a higher similarity in medicinal plant species composition between the paired study areas. These results agree with the case reported by [25] from home-gardens of Habro district where Sorenson and Jaccard’s ranged from 69.03% to 81.82% and 52.70% to 69.23% respectively. When similarity is higher than 0.5 it shows even distribution of species among the sampling areas.

Life forms (habit) of medicinal plants

Herbs constitute the highest species representative by 76 species (46.91%), trees 39(24.07%), shrubs 38(23.46%) and Tree/Shrub 9 (5.56%), species (Figure 2). The plant life form use pattern by traditional healers for remedy preparation in this study was consistent with the use patterns noted by other studies in Ethiopia where herbs and shrubs were consistently preferred life forms.

Source of medicinal plants

The majority of the reported species (59.03%) were wild; whereas some (35.68%) were reported as cultivated and others (5.29%) both wild and cultivated (Figure 3). This indicates that the practitioners depend on the wild source or the natural environment rather than home gardens to obtain the medicinal plants, and the activity of cultivating medicinal plants is very poor in the study area. It also indicates that the natural forest of West Hararghe Zone is being over exploited by traditional practitioners for its medicinal plants composition.

Plant parts used to treat human and livestock ailments

People of the study area harvest different plant parts for preparation of traditional drugs (e.g. leaves, roots, seeds, barks and fruit). In the study area, the most frequently utilized plant part was leaf (35.47%) followed by root (21.80%), Seed (12.50%) (Table 8). The diversity of plant parts found by this study agrees with the results obtained from other Ethno-medicinal studies; [26] and all reported that leaves were the plant parts most used in medicine preparations. Another similar result was shown in the work of [27] where the frequencies of harvest for leaves and roots were reported to be 35.47and 21.80%, respectively. The preference of leaves to other plant parts could be due to (1) ease of collection and preparation, (2) preparation of medicinal teas [28], and/or (3) the presence of more bioactive ingredients in leaves developed in response to phytophagous organ- isms since leaves are the most vulnerable parts of a plant [29]. Such wide harvesting of leaf and the most harvested habit is herbs, which are important for survival of plants has a negative influence on the survival and continuity of useful medicinal plants and hence affects sustainable utilization of the plants.

Disease types, treatment methods and herbal preparations used to treat human and livestock health problems

Though 115 different disease types were recorded as human and livestock health problems in the districts, the major and most widespread diseases according to the informants include Sudden sickness, Febrile illness, Skin disease/Tufa/, Evil eye and Stomach-ache (Table 9). In addition to these the practitioners were also visited for diseases like Blotting, Dysentery, Toothache, Gonorrhea, rheumatoid arthritis and hemorrhoids. Internal ailments were commonly treated by making the patient drink herbal preparations; skin infections such as ringworm treated by rubbing and painting herbal preparations on an infected skin; sores by chewing and spitting remedial plant part on the sore; headaches and fever by steam bath and vapor inhalation. Similar results were reported elsewhere in Ethiopia. Though special care was taken, some herbal preparations had side effects and resulted in diarrhea and vomiting. When such conditions happened, antidotes like milk, honey and powder of roasted barley were used or ordered by most of the practitioners to reverse the condition. Most of the medicinal plant preparations given did not have standardized doses. In most cases dosages were determined according to the age, sex and physical appearance of the patient. Some of the medicinal plant preparations were measured in a small cup, a jug, while others as handful, or spoonful. Proper care is needed for sanitation of herbal preparations and their containers. Some preparations were placed in unclean containers and areas which may result contamination and seriously affect users when drunk. Patients suffered from overdose and contaminations were believed to recover by application of antidotes. Substances like cold water, tea, honey, coffee, butter, olive oil, salt, sugar, meat, ash and milk were reported to be mixed with the plant materials during the preparation of remedies. The processed remedies were mostly administered through oral (62.09%) and dermal (20.26%) routes (Figure 4). These were followed by nasal (6.71%), the rest in total (10.96%) administrations. These results are consistent with the findings of various Ethnobotanical researches elsewhere in Ethiopia, such as that of [30].

Medicinal plants used to treat human, livestock and both human and livestock ailments

Among the collected medicinal plants, 86(53.09%) used to treat Human disease, 69 (42.59%) used to treat livestock ailments and 7 (4.32%) used to treat both human and livestock ailments (Table 10).

Conclusions and Recommendation

Traditional healers of West Hararghe Zone were found to be rich in their indigenous knowledge on the use of Ethno-medicinal plant species to manage various human and livestock ailments within the study area. This was evidenced with the result that a total of 114 human and livestock ailments were reported to be treated using 162 Ethno-medicinal plant species. The total number of plant treatments cited in this study could however indicate that the general culture of Ethno-medicinal knowledge secrecy was slightly lower with few exceptions. Traditional healers dwelling in the three districts varied significantly in their indigenous knowledge on management of human and livestock ailments. This could on the one hand be attributed to the individual knowledge differences as a result of their background or indeed the depth of indigenous knowledge inherited. On the other hand it could be because of the ecological and environmental variations of the three districts, in other words there may be variations in species richness of the three districts. According to our result; male uses few plants for different human and livestock diseases; where females uses many plant for few human and livestock disease. Most of the Ethno-medicinal species were reported to be collected from wild sources. The majority of Ethno-medicinal plant species reported in this study were repeatedly harvested for their leaves and roots. Similar result was shown in the work of Huai and Pei (2005) where the frequencies of harvest for leaves and roots were reported to be 35.47and 21.80%, respectively. The plant life form use pattern by traditional healers for remedy preparation in this study was consistent with the use patterns noted by other studies in Ethiopia where herbs and shrubs were consistently preferred life forms. Most medicinal plant species were reported to be threatened by several factors such as human being, natural disaster and animals. In addition, traditional healers significantly cited the absence of efforts to conserve the reported Ethno-medicinal plant species. Urgent measures should therefore be taken so as to involve the traditional healers residing in West Hararghe Zone in the conservation and sustainable use of Ethno-medicinal plant resources as these were found to have significant contribution to meet the primary health cares of the local people in the zone. Any benefits arising from use or application of the indigenous knowledge reported in this study accrues equitably to traditional healers residing in the zone. Traditional medicinal plants and associated indigenous knowledge are the main systems to maintain human and livestock health in West Hararghe Zone. But minimal conservation measures were recorded in the community. Thus, in-situ and ex-situ conservation practices and sustainable utilization are required in the Zone.

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