Ethnomedicinal applications of forest plants for the treatment of common ailments by Gond and Madia tribes of Maharashtra, India

The present study was performed to document the different ethnomedicinal plants used by Gond and Madia Gond tribes in the Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra (India). After screening, a total of 120 persons belonging to Gond and Madia tribes were interviewed for the use of medicinal plants. As a result of this interaction, a total of 79 medicinal plants were identified to which they claimed to use for the treatment of 34 ailments. These plants belonged to 30 families and 57 genera of the angiosperms. The ethno botanical indices such as the informant consensus factor (ICF), relative frequency of citation (RFC) were also evaluated. The most important plant family was Fabaceae (10.1%) followed by Mimosaceae (7.6%), Moraceae (7.6%), Caesalpiniaceae (6.3%) and Rubiaceae (6.3%). Some of the dominant genera reported were Ficus (5 species), Acacia (3 species), Terminalia (3 species), and Albizia (2 species). Some of the important ailments claimed to be treated were dermal disorders, blood-related diseases, diabetes, edema and fever. During this study ICF values for different ailments ranged from 0.0 to 0.84, swelling aliments had the highest ICF i.e. 0.84 with 27 reports and five plant species used. The highest RFC value (0.45) was found for Acacia catechu (Family: Mimosaceae) and the lowest RFC value (0.09) was found for Emblica officinalis, (Family: Euphorbiaceae).