Ethno Botanical Studies of District Dera Ghazi Khan, Province Punjab, Pakistan

The chief aim of this study was to enlist the Ethnobotanical uses of plants in Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab, Pakistan. Due to unique geographical and climatic conditions, Pakistan has a great oral diversity. Plants have been used by the indigenous people for treatment of different ailments since long. They are still dependent on the plants for their domestic purposes. Moreover, plants are used as rst aid to treat diverse ailments such as hepatic disorders, cardiac diseases, neurological diseases, anticancer, respiratory diseases, ENT problems, gynecological problems etc. The traditional uses of medicinal plants lead to the discovery of natural drugs. This is rst quantitative ethno medicinal documentation of medicinal plants in Dera Ghazi Khan. Punjab, Pakistan.


Introduction
Various botanical uses of plants represents a long history of human interactions with the environment.
Plants used for traditional medicine contain a wide range of substances that can be used to treat chronic as well as infectious diseases. A vast knowledge of how to use the plants against different illnesses may be expected to have accumulated in areas where the use of plants is still of great importance. [1]. The medicinal value of plants lies in some chemical substances that produce a de nite physiological action on the human body. The most important of these bioactive compounds of plants are alkaloids, avonoids, tannins and phenolic compounds. [2] Rural communities, in particular Paliyar tribes, depend on plant resources mainly for herbal medicines, food, forage, construction of dwellings, making household implements, sleeping mats, and for re and shade. The use of medicinal plants as traditional medicines is well known in rural areas of many developing countries. [3] Pakistan is rich in plant resources, particularly the medicinal plants. [4] More than 6,000 species of higher plants and 4,000 spices of fungi has been recognized and established in the Peshawar region. At least 1,000 medicinal plants species were reported from Pakistan [5] of which 500 species were commonly used in health care practices and 350 were traded for billions of Rupees to the national and international markets. Most of the medicinal plants available in the market or supplied directly to the pharmaceutical industries are extracted from the rural forest. [6] Traditional healers claim that their medicine is cheaper and more effective than modern medicine. In developing countries, low-income people such as farmers, people of small isolate villages and native communities use folk medicine for the treatment of common infections. [7] Medicinal plants have provided a source of inspiration for novel drug compound as plant derived medicine has made signi cant contribution to world human health. [8]. The important necessity and patentability of medicinal plants in practice of medicine today is well established and cannot be over looked. The use of alternative medical therapy increased the interest of pharmacologists and herbalists over the past decade. Plant medicine had become a topic of global importance. A lot of interest has been taken in investigation of medicinal source. A large number of these medicinal plants are used in the form of powder, decoction and infusion for treatment of various diseases including the infection caused by microbes with per amount of success by Hakims and local people. [9] Dera Ghazi Khan is quite rich tropical regions of Punjab. Ethno medicinal study of this area has never been conducted. The climate of the area is quite hot. The main languages spoken in the District include Urdu and Punjabi. There is a lack of satisfactory health-care facilities, thus resulting in high maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR). Almost all ethnic groups use herbal medicines to cure different diseases, and these groups are rich with indigenous knowledge regarding the use of medicinal plants. Plants are used for food, shelter and therapeutic agents. However, lack of precise knowledge about the use able parts, proper time of collection and wasteful methods of collection lead to mishandling of these plants. So, the indigenous knowledge is going to be useless. Few studies have been carried out previously on Dera Ghazi Khan but no work has been done on quantitative approaches of medicinal plants in District Dera Ghazi Khan. Hence ethno medicinal survey is planned for Dera Ghazi Khan Punjab to document the traditional uses of medicinal plants in the area before the information is lost. Objective: The main objective of present study was To document the indigenous therapeutic knowledge of plants.
compile pro le of medicinal plants by using quantitative indices Evaluation of available ethno botanical data.

Study Area:
Dera Ghazi Khan District occupies area of 9,359 square miles. Its position in respect of area both in Pakistan and West Pakistan is 9 th . ( Fig: 1). The district is named after the headquarters town Dera Ghazi Khan, which was founded 500 years ago by Ghazi Khan Mirrani, who was a great cattle-owner and was attracted by the abundant supply of grass.
This district is in the extreme south-western district of Multan division. It lies between north latitudes 28°2 0' and 31° l 5' and east longitudes 69° 35' and 70° 59'. It has a unique location and it is bounded on the north by Dera Ismail Khan district, on the east by a xed boundary with the Alipur tehsil of Muzafargarh district, running roughly parallel with the Tndus upto the Panjnad con uence and further south by a xed boundary with the Rahim Yar Khan in district, on the south lies the district of Jacobabad while on the west foothills of Suleiman Range. [10] Material And Methods The study was conducted and several visits were made on seasonal basis to Dera Ghazi Khan. The study was based on direct communication with the local inhabitants and local Hakims of the area. This information was then compared with available literature and found to be authentic. Material and other necessary information was collected from the council o ces, Forestry, Wild life and Fisheries Department of the concerned area. The documented ethno botanical data will be elucidated to define plant parts, and preparation methods. Various quantitative indices will be used i.e. The UV of reported species was calculated using the following formula. [11] UV= U/ n Where UV is the use value of species, "U" is the total number of use reports per species, and "n" represents the total number of informants interrogated for a given plant. UVs are higher if there are many use reports of a plant, implying that the plant is important, whereas they are near zero.

Relative Frequency Citation (RFC)
The RFC was calculated using the following formula [12] RFC= FC/ N (0<RFC<1): This relation displays the local prominence of every species, and it is calculated by dividing the FC, the number of informants reporting the use of the species divided by the total number of informers contributing in the survey (N)

Informant Consensus Factor (ICF)
ICF is calculated by the following formula [13] ICF= (N ur -N t )/ (N ur -1) Where "N ur " mentions the number of use reports for a particular ailment category and "Nt" refers to the number of taxa used for a particular ailment category. The result of this consensus ranges from zero to 1. A high value (close to 1) speci es that taxa are used by the large proportion of the informants for a number of conditions related to that broad category, whereas the low value (close to 0) indicates that the plants are chosen randomly for a few or a single condition or that informants did not exchange information about the use of plants. [14] 4. Fidelity Level (FL) FL points out the preference shown for one species over others, for treating a particular ailment. [15] The high FL confirms high usage of the plant species for a particular ailment, whereas low FL confirms a wide range of medicinal uses but with a low frequency for each ailment. It was calculated by the following formula: FL= I p / I u ×100; Where "I p " is the number of informants stating the use of a species for a particular ailment category.
Whereas "I u " is the number of informants stating the use of that plant for any ailment category.

Results And Discussion
Demographic data Five eld trips (to cover seasonal variations) were carried out to gather ethno medicinal data of medicinal plants. The total duration of the eld study from June 2019 to March 2020. A total of 200 informants were interviewed. Among the 200 informants, mostly were indigenous people ( Table 2). A large number of people were in the age of 70-80 years (35%). Due to the lack of some educational facilities in that area, most of the informants have completed their 10 years education (69.5%). Most of the informants spoke Punjabi and very frequently spoke Urdu. The majority of informants were male (60%) rather than female (40%).

Life forms
In this survey, herbs were documented with highest frequency (51%), then herbaceous shrubs (29%) which were followed by trees (13%), and weeds (7%) (Fig no. 3). Dominancy of herbs in making herbal remedies is due to its ubiquitous growth and easy collections of herbs as compared to trees and shrubs. Besides this, herbs can be manipulated with easiness in herbal preparation methods and extraction of bioactive compounds. [16] Parts of medicinal plants used for curing diseases: According to the survey, Leaves were mostly used by the people of DG Khan for curing diseases as 69.5 % as shown in the Fig below. Leaves are mostly used because they are easily collected. After leave, Whole plant (67%) is used for the preparation of herbal medicines for curing diseases by the people. Then whole plant is followed by root (40%) because they require less effort and are frequently used for curing diseases. (Fig no 4). Least used parts are Buds, sap, tuber, petals, pod, Rhizome etc. They are used 0.5 to 1 % as ailments.

Form and mode of utilization
In this survey, mostly plants were reported for internal applications. They were used either in the form of decoction (50%) or in the form of Infusion (25%) (Fig no: 5). This form of utilization is common in other parts of Pakistan particularly and in World generally. The decoction was made by boiling the plant parts in water [17,18]. While 20% were recommended for external use in the form of paste. The majorities of herbal medicines were prepared from fresh plant material rather than dried material. ailments was ranging from 0.05 to 0.88 (Table 2). Commonly the value of ICF for disease treatment depends upon the availability of plant species in that area [19]. The highest value of ICF was reported for ENT problems (0.88), urinary disorders (0.57) and respiratory diseases (0.35). It showed that ENT problems were the most common disease in the study area and most of the people had knowledge about its cure. They were using 19 different species (Martynia annua, Bauhinia veriegata, Prosopis spicigera, Helianthus annuus, Artemisia scoparia, Rhazya stricta, Calligonum polygonoides, Lycium barbarum, Eclipta alba, Capsicum annuum, Azadirachta indica, Eucalyptus globulus, Boerhavia procumbens, Prosopis cineraria, Acacia Senegal, Abutilon indicum, Indigofera oblongifolia, Conyza Canadensis and Calotropis procera). These nineteen species were not only used for ENT problems in this region but also reported from other regions of Pakistan. While the lowest value of ICF was for Sexual and hair related problems that may be due to lack of communication among the informants in the study area [19].  The value of RFC ranged from 0.1 to 0.95. (Table no: 3). The highest value of RFC present in Melia azedarach and Carissa opaca (0.95 each).It can be seen that plants with highest RFC are the most common plant in that region and majority people agreed by its medicinal value [21]. While the lowest value of RFC was present in Capparis decidua and Melilotus alba (0.1 each)

Fidelity Level (FL)
In present study the FL ranged from 18 to 82% ( knowledge is very valuable. In this way the local communities of Dera Ghazi Khan district will get the better chances of employment, native ora will be conserved in a proper way for future utilizations, retain its natural glory and will be used by the industry to produce Nano medicines.

Conclusion
This study enlist several medicinal plant species which are used by the indigenous people of Dera Ghazi Khan and Result of the study showed that variety of plant species used in making various herbal remedies which plays vital role in the primary healthcare of the local people DG Khan Punjab, Pakistan.
Plants having noticeable Fidelity percentage and Use value are precious to these areas. So these plants should be evaluated for further phytochemical screening and biological activities for future drug discovery and development which may lead to plant-based Nano-medicine drug discovery and development.

Declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate