title: Ethnobotany of medicinal plants in Ada'a District, East Shewa Zone of Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  An ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants was conducted in Ada'a District, Eastern Shewa Zone of Oromia Regional State of Ethiopia. The objective of the study was to identify and document medicinal plants and the associated ethnobotanical/ethnomedicinal knowledge of the local people.
  
  
  METHODS
  Relevant ethnobotanical data focused on medicinal plants and traditional herbal medicines were collected using guided field walk, semi-structured interview and direct field observation. Informant consensus method and group discussion were conducted for crosschecking and verification of the information. Both descriptive statistics and quantitative ethnobotanical methods were used for data analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We documented 131 species distributed in 109 genera and 54 families based on local claims of medicinal values. Patients who are using traditional drugs and herbalists collect most of these plants from the wild. The leading plant families that encompass large medicinal species were the Lamiaceae (14 species) followed by Asteraceae (13) and Solanaceae (7).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study reported the existence of a number of medicinal plants, an indication for the presence of plant-based traditional medicinal knowledge transfer that survived through generations. Informants asserted that wild growing medicinal plants are under threat due to increased use pressure coupled with unsuitable harvesting that frequently targets roots and barks for remedy preparations. This calls for urgent and collaborative actions to keep the balance between medicinal plants availability in the wild state and their utilization by the community. Furthermore, the study attempted to prioritize the most efficacious medicinal plants as perceived by the local people for possible pharmacological testing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, College of Natural Sciences, Addis Ababa University, 3434, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. alex.aau2001@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Alemayehu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kefalew
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, College of Natural Sciences, Addis Ababa University, 3434, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. zasfaw49@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Zemede
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Asfaw
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, College of Natural Sciences, Addis Ababa University, 3434, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. ensermuk2002@yahoo.co.uk.
authors.forename: Ensermu
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kelbessa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005002:Ethiopia; D019448:Ethnobotany / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D016488:Medicine, African Traditional / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D008517:Phytotherapy / Q000379:methods; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D055815:Young Adult