title: Relative importance of indigenous medicinal plants from Layyah district, Punjab Province, Pakistan.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ethnomedicinal reports are important for the discovery of new crude drugs from reported medicinal plants with high use value. The current study aimed to document the medicinal flora as well as medicinal knowledge of indigenous plants of local communities from Layyah district, Punjab Province, Pakistan.
  
  
  METHODS
  Rapid appraisal approach (RAA), semi-structured interviews, group meetings with herbalists, landowners and local people having awareness about the medicinal action of plants were employed to collect the data. Use values (UV) and frequency of citation (FC) were calculated to check the relative importance of plants.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current ethnomedicinal study reported 125 medicinal plant species diversified from 106 genus belonging to the 43 different families and Poaceae was the predominant family over others with 16 reported medicinal plants. Wild herbaceous plants were the predominant over other life forms while among plant parts, leaves contributed 32% followed by the stem (27%), fruit and flowers (15%). Allium sativum exhibited the highest use vale (UV) 0.92 while the lowest UV was exhibited by Lasiurus scindicus which was 0.15.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Local communities of district Layyah still have a strong faith on herbal medicines for basic healthcare needs. Indigenous plants having high UV and FC should be subjected to the detailed phytochemical investigations to explore new natural drugs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, Quiad-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Nadeem
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Aqeel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mahmood
authors.affiliation: Environmental Biology Laboratory, Department of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Adeel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mahmood
authors.affiliation: Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, H-9, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Tahir
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, Quiad-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan. Electronic address: banoasghari@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Asghari
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bano
authors.affiliation: Environmental Biology and Ecotoxicology Laboratory, Department of Environmental Sciences, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Riffat Naseem
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Seema
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany, Mirpur University of Science & Technology (MUST) Bhimber Campus, Bhimber Azad Kashmir, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ishtiaq
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003625:Data Collection; D020834:Ethnopharmacology; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010154:Pakistan; D008517:Phytotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D028321:Plant Preparations / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D028321:Plant Preparations
keywords: Ethnomedicines; Layyah; Pakistan; Punjab; Use value