Ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants claimed by traditional herbal practitioners to manage digestive disorders in an oasis of Tafilalet-Morocco

Abstract

To highlight the different medicinal plants traditionally used by the local citizens of the Tafilalet region to treat digestive disorders, floristic and ethnobotanical research was conducted in that region from April 2021 to July 2021. The ethnobotanical surveys were carried out using questionnaire sheets with 30 herbalists in different areas in Tafilalet (Errachidia, Rissani, and Erfoud). This study enabled us to gather extensive information about local traditions of therapeutic practices using medicinal plants on one hand and to make a floristic catalog of the same plants on the other hand. Thus, this work ended up by identifying 48 species belonging to 28 floristic families in which Apiaceae and Lamiaceae are the most dominant, and the Ranunculaceae exhibited the highest family use value (FUV=0.667). Of the species listed, Nigella sativa L. has the highest use value (UVs=0.677). The highest relative citation frequency is noted for Rosmarinus officinalis L. and Nigella sativa (RFC=0.233). The leaves (29.82%) are the most used part of plants, and a large part of the remedies are used in powder form (35%) and infusion (28%). The most treated digestive disorders are gastritis (26%) and abdominal pain (24%).