Ethno-Medicinal Studies of Plants In Jalandhar District of Punjab, India

An ethno-medicinal survey was conducted in Jalandhar district of Punjab, India to document traditional medicinal plant species utilized for the treatment of various human as well as animal ailments. A semi structured questionnaire was used to collect the information. It has been observed that people of the area are using 119 plant species comprising 109 genera and 57 families. Eight members of each family Apiaceae and Fabaceae are being used by the natives as ethno medicines for the treatment of 40 diseases. Variable number of plant species from rest of the families are also being used by the natives for different curative purposes. Although every plant part has its own importance in the treatment of one or the other disease but leaves of 35 plant species have been used in different remedial preparations. Majority of the plants used were cultivated or purchased from the market. This may be because of their easy availability or nonavailability of the wild species due to destruction of their natural habitat because of urbanization or industrialization. Data was collected from 100 persons (both males and females) irrespective of their age, sex and profession. During the present investigation, it has been observed that this knowledge is vanishing at a very fast rate and needs immediate documentation to be available in future. Sincere efforts are also required to transfer this knowledge to the younger generations