A survey on ethnomedicinal plants used by forest dependent communities of the south western part of West Bengal, India
Keywords:
Ethnomedicine, NDVI, Quantitative tool, South west bengal, Tribes, Traditional knowledgeAbstract
The present communication deals with the observation and documentation on ethnomedicinal uses of wild plants by different socio-cultural groups of the south western part of Bengal. Information was recorded from interviewing different tribal healers by semi-structured open-ended questionnaire method. The vegetation index and location map were prepared by GIS technology. The collected data was analyzed by different statistical tools like Informant Consensus Factor (ICF), Fidelity Level (FL%), Use Value (UV), Consensus value for Plant Part (CPP), and Relative Frequency Citation (RFC). Total 119 numbers of species have been recorded which are used by tribal people for twelve large disease categories. Gastrointestinal (0.66) and respiratory (0.58) diseases are secure the highest ICF value. 84 species identified with 100% FL value and highest RFC value is recorded for Calotropis gigantea (L.) W.T Aiton and 55 species are noted as highest Use Value. This study enlightens the important species which is a primary step of any drug preparation.
