The endemic medicinal plants of Northern Balochistan, Pakistan and their uses in traditional medicine
Graphical abstract
The endemic medicinal plants of Northern Balochistan, Pakistan and their uses in traditional medicine.
Section snippets
1. Introduction
Pakistan has a unique biodiversity, having nine major ecological zones. Due to its unique climate, the country is very rich in medicinal and endemic plants distributed in its large area. The highlands of Northern Balochistan are the hot spots of medicinal and endemic plant in Pakistan. A total of 1572 genera and 5521 species of flowering plants are identified in Pakistan, out of which 400–600 are medicinally important. About 400 species are endemic to Pakistan (Ali, 2008) from these, about 80%
2.1. Geo-ethnographical overview
Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan in size and smallest in population. It covers almost 44% of the country's land area i.e. 34.7 million hectares. Physically, Balochistan is an extensive plateau of rough terrain divided into basins by ranges of sufficient heights and ruggedness. Broadly, Balochistan geographic area can be divided in to four distinct zones: Upper high lands, lower high lands, plains, and deserts. The upper highlands, known locally as Khorasan, rise as high as 3700 m,
3.1. Socio-demographic details of respondents
A total of 152 informants (133 local people and 19 tradition healers) were interviewed from the 16 villages/town and cities of Balochistan, Pakistan. These comprised (46%) men and (54%) women. Large numbers of informants were in the age group of above 60 years (54%), followed by 41–60 (28%) years and 20–40 (18%). The informants were mostly Illiterate (48%), little formal education mostly to the primary level only (33%), while four of them (3%) had extra qualifications. (Table 1). It is noted
4. Conclusions
This study first documented the information about the medicinal uses of endemic species of Balochistan-province Pakistan. The highlands of northern Balochistan are the hot spots of the biodiversity in Balochistan and rich in medicinal and endemic species. These plants are still commonly used for medicinal purposes by people in their daily lives. This region, which is rich in medicinal plants, still needs more exploration and study. Thus, it is important to document and reconstitute the
Acknowledgments
We are very thankful to all my friends of Makran and Lasbela for providing help in data collection and also very grateful to the all local informants for providing their valuable information, help in plant collection and hospitality as well. Financial assistance provided by Higher Education Commission, Pakistan (HEC) (Grant no. 1944) under indigenous scholarships is highly thankful.
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