Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ChaPtEr
2
Catalog of Major african Medicinal Plants
INtrODUCtION
This chapter contains a list of over 2000 plants used in traditional medical practice in Africa.
The plants are arranged according to families and listed alphabetically. The modern system of plant
classifications as proposed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) has been adopted for this
edition. In the earlier edition, plants belonging to the large family Leguminosae were listed under
the subfamilies Caesalpiniaceae, Mimosaceae, and Paplilionaceae, but they have now been grouped
together under the family Leguminosae. Similarly, plants belonging to the family Apocynaceae
have been grouped together. Certain plant families have been renamed and others merged for ease
of classification. Readers are advised to use the Index of Species, Genera, and Families at the end
of the topic to search for plants not listed under a familiar family.
The column in Table 2.1 on medicinal uses of the plants is mainly from the collation of several
published sources and correspondents. The diseases treated and the biological activities are used inter-
changeably in this column to reflect the actual format used in the original reports. Pharmacological
terms have been used for the activities of the plants employed in the treatment of disease conditions
that are not adequately described by healers in modern pathological terms, which means that the
usage has to be interpreted in the broadest sense possible. Some seemingly contradictory responses
received on the use and biological activities of some of the plants are retained since it is now known
that the activity of plant extracts depends on several factors and may sometimes have opposite effects,
depending on the method of preparation, dosage, and physiological state of the patient. The activities
listed in this chapter are based on neither the results of pharmacological studies nor the reports of
controlled clinical trials. They are based entirely on reported ethnomedical uses.
The plant parts included in the catalog are mainly those commonly used for the preparation of
remedies for the conditions listed under the specific plant. In most cases, various parts of a plant
could be used for treating specific diseases, and, perhaps more important, the therapeutic activity
and the toxicity may reside in different parts of the plant. In most cases, the plant parts are listed in
order of preference or frequency of use, with the most frequently used plant part listed first.
Key references have been provided as a guide to sources of additional information on the individual
plants. The literature citations are limited only to reference works and topics on African ethnobotany.
These include the Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA), a web database in English and French
that has detailed information on the taxonomy, ethnography, and properties of many African plants.
1
Many reference publications and compendia of monographs, such as Neuwinger's
African Traditional
Medicine
;
2
African Herbal Pharmacopoeia
;
3
the AfricMED database, which contains a compilation of
ethnobotanical information and a summary of biological assays by InterCEDD (International Centre
for Ethnomedicine and Drug Development)
at Nsukka;
4
and the
Nigerian Herbal Pharmacopoeia
,
5
published by the Federal Ministry of Health (2008), were useful in preparing this update. In many
cases, no reference has been cited, which indicates that the information was derived from multiple
sources in journals or data from the AfricMED database at InterCEDD Nsukka (Nigeria).
