Medicinal plants used by the tribal communities of Bandarban Hill District, Bangladesh

Tribal communities in hilly areas of Bangladesh are mainly depend on herbal treatment for their illness and primary health care.The purpose of the present study was to document significantly distinguishable medicinal plants and their ethnopharmacological applications used by the tribal communities of Bandarban Hill District.During this expedition, a total of 244 ethnomedicinal plants have been recorded and documented which belonged to 86 plant families.Euphorbiaceae was found to be the largest plant family represented by 17 plant species, followed by Asteraceae, Rubiaceae, Fabaceae, Acanthaceae, Apocynaceae, Lauraceae and Verbenaceae.Herbs (35%) were found to be the most used plant, followed by shrubs (28%), trees (21%), climbers (13%) and fern (3%).For the treatment of different ailments, leaves were the most used dominant plant parts (42%), followed by roots (21%), whole plants (10%), bark (6%), stem (5%), fruit (4%), rhizome (4%), flower (4%), seed (2%), latex (1%) and tuber (1%).Out of 11 different forms of treatments for different diseases, the most common form was juice, followed by paste, decoction, fluid extraction, pill, powder, poultice, chewing raw, curry, infusion and fermented plant materials.Through this investigation, 102 diseases or illnesses were recorded which have been treated by medicinal plant species.The most commonly treated diseases was skin diseases for which 23 plant species were used followed by fever (22 species), stomachache (21 species), coughs (20 species), headache and dysentery (18 species each), menstruation problem and asthma (17 species each), wound and jaundice (16 species each), gastric and constipation (15 species each).