Phytochemical potentials and medicinal uses of twenty-four selected medicinal plants from Swabi, Pakistan

Poverty is persistent in district Swabi, Pakistan. A majority of the population cultivates small farms for its survival and earns extra money adopting small trade of medicinal plants collection to prepare the herbal medicines. The current study is based on ethno botanical data collection of the study area to document the valuable ethno medicinal information for the future generation. It is a qualitative study of 24 selected medicinal plants by field visits and questionnaire. Plants were collected from three study sites (research stations, plain areas and hilly areas). The hill stations were surveyed every fifteen days from January, 2010 to December, 2010. Change in temperature of selected site is negligible but human activities, grazing and soil texture verify the plant diversity. Plant species grow well in hilly site than that of plain areas. The results showed that among twenty-four medicinal plant species documented as herbal medicines by Swabi communities, the most familiar species included Hordeum vulgare, Lantana camara, Melia azedarach, Mentha longifolia, Morus nigra, Nerium odorum, Nicotiana tabacum, Opuntia dillenii, Oxalis corniculata and Phaseolus lunatus. During this study, it was found that ethnomedicinal information is transferred from generation to generation from older to younger people. This study provides a base line for developing plans so that these precious species can be preserved and used for drug production in future. Over exploitation by unscientific way of harvesting of these species should be controlled. Moreover, tissue culture techniques should be used to increase the production of these plants.