Ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants in Malumfashi Local Government Area, Northwestern Nigeria

People in Malumfashi Local Government Area Katsina State, Nigeria have been using medicinal plants to cure various ailments since time immemorial. However, the medicinal uses of such plants were never documented. Herein, we conducted an ethnobotanical survey to document medicinal plants as well as the ethnobotanical knowledge of Malumfashi Local Government, Katsina State, Nigeria. We employed a semi-structured questionnaire to interview 50 respondents comprising of herbalists, traditional midwives, housewives and farmers. Medicinal plants belonging to 37 genera distributed among 29 families were documented. The majority of the mentioned medicinal plants belong to the family Fabaceae (9), Asteraceae Combretaceae and Moraceae (4), Malvaceae (3), Myrtaceae and Anacardiaceae (2) families. Securidaca longipedunculata, Azadirachta indica, and Mangifera indica were the medicinal plants with the highest relative frequency of citation with 0.44. 0.38, and 0.34, respectively. For fidelity level (FL), Spinacia oleracea and Diospyros mespiliformis were the species with the highest, 100% each. Among the 10 categories of ailments, Urogenital, Fever, and Antinode had the highest Informant Consensus Factor (ICF) of 0.78,0.76 and 0.75, respectively. Most of the reported plants (84%) were trees and shrubs and about 70% of the surveyed plants were wild. The most frequent plant parts used were leaves and bark. The majority of the medications (70%) were prepared as decoctions and were mostly administered orally (86%). We recommend screening of bioactive compounds present in the reported plant species as well as their biological activities on the pathogens that cause the diseases. Additionally, the cultivation of medicinal plants to minimize the pressure on wild species is also recommended. Keywords: Ailments, Ethnobotanical survey, Malumfashi Local Government, Medicinal plants