Ethnobotanical investigation of aridlands of district Khushab, Punjab, Pakistan

The aim of ethnobotany is to record the indigenous knowledge of plants including local names and their uses by the inhabitants of the area under investigation. With the advent of modernization, the folk traditions including ethnobotanical knowledge is at decline rapidly. Keeping in view, present study was designed to carry out a survey for recording indigenous knowledge of native plants by the inhabitants of Tehsil Khushab. For this purpose, field trips were arranged and the study area was surveyed during August 2010 to May 2011. A Semi-structured questionnaire was designed and used to record the uses of plants by the local peoples including indigenous communities, herbalists (Hakeems) and midwives (Daai). Different age groups were interviewed to record maximum information in order to correlate the uses of plants with the age groups. A total of 157 plant species belonging to 118 genera and 52 families that served to the natives for fulfilling different needs from them. Nine categories of needs/usages were recorded from the study area. The use value index (UVI) of species indicated that two species viz. Azadirachta indica and Prosopis juliflora are first in rank which are heavily used for fulfilling eight use categories. The use of fodder and forage was very common in the area (25.82%), followed by fuel, other uses (17.34% each), medicinal (16.76%), vegetable (7.71%), while rest of four use categories were within the range of (5.01-2.89%). One hundred and forty four species were reported as palatable. With refrence to part used, areial parts were prefereably used by the livestock (73 spp.), followed by whole plants (54 spp.) and leaves (17 spp.). The area sustains high proportion of highly platable species (81 spp.), followed by medium palatable (44 spp.) and less palatble (19 spp.).  With reference to medicinal use, 87 plant species have been found to use as medicine. Altogether, 69 different ailments/diseases were treated using 87 plant species. Constipation was found the most prevalent disease in the area and most of the species (20 spp., 6.39%) were used to treat that complaint. It was followed by pimples (16 spp., 5.11%), jaundice (15 spp., 4.79%), boils (14 spp., 4.47%), stomach problem (13 spp., 4.15%), blood purifier (12 spp., 3.83%) and gas trouble (11 spp., 3.51%), liver tonic, skin itching (10 spp., 3.19% each). With reference to conservation status, 68 species were commonly observed in the study area, however 60 species were very commonly seen.