Abstract: Ethnobotanical survey of plants in Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State, Southern Nigeria was carried out with the aim of identifying and documenting different plant species of Ethnoeconomic and Ethnomedicinal importance used by this people to enrich their lives and solve their health problems. The knowledge of these plants used by this people was gained through the administration of well-structured questionnaires, in-depth interactions with herbalist in the area, field trips with herbalist and some selected locals, organized group discussions and literature review. A total of 116 persons (16 herbalist and 100 locals) from 16 villages were sampled during the survey period. The survey revealed that a total of 65 plant species distributed into 37 families have major Ethnoeconomic and Ethnomedicinal importance to this people. Thirty-five (35) plant species distributed into 27 families have major Ethnoeconomic usage, 15 plant species distributed into 11 families have Ethnomedicinal usage while 15 plant species distributed into 13 families have combined Ethnoeconomic and Ethnomedicinal usage. For all the plant species documented, those belonging to the family Aracaceae have the highest usage (17%) followed by those in the family Asteraceae (14%). Percentages of parts used for all the documented plant species shows that the leaves have the highest usage (31.18%) followed by fruits (27.96%), whole plant (13.98%), stem (12.90%), bark (5.38%), tubers (4.30%), seeds (3.23%) and roots (1.08%).The usefulness of this documented information towards the conservation of the natural heritage of the Andoni man and his biodiversity is also elaborated by this survey.
Keywords: Andoni, Ethnobotany, Ethnobotanical, Ethnoeconomical, Ethnomedicinal.
Title: Ethnobotanical Survey of Plants in Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State, Southern Nigeria
Author: Ubelejit Alfred, Adoyi Paul, Sunday Ameh, Yakubu Danjuma
International Journal of Life Sciences Research
ISSN 2348-313X (Print), ISSN 2348-3148 (online)
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