Crops in human life : Comparative medicinal use of plants by Rakhain tribes living in forested and non-forested regions in Bangladesh

Abstract

Medicinal plant use of Rakhain tribal community of Bangladesh living in a forested hilly region and non-forested plain land region was compared in terms of plant parts utilization, mode of administration, use versatility and uniformity in use. A total of 42 plant species belonging to 26 families distributed over 35 genera were recorded. Forest (59.24%) is the main source of medicinal plants for Rakhain tribal people living in forested region, while it is home garden/homestead agro-forest (61.96%) for non-forested region. Trees were the most frequent growth form (47.62%) and 16 species were found with high use versatility (RI>1) for forested region, while it was 14 for the non-forested region. Only one fruit species has been included in high versatile use category for forested region and three fruit species have been included in the same use category for non-forested region. For 10 ailment categories (among 13), F-ic values for non-forested area were higher than the forested area indicating more uniformity and rigidity in traditional ethno-medicinal knowledge of Rakhain tribal community living in non-forested region than the forested region as the first group usually exchanges their knowledge with local people (non-tribal).