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Appraisal of Medicinal Plants Diversity Inhabited in Deserts Areas

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Bioprospecting of Tropical Medicinal Plants

Abstract

Medicinal plants and their products have played a significant role in improving health conditions through herbal therapies. This study is confined to report and explore floral dicot diversity and their potential in drug development in the herbal industry and revenue generation at local, regional, and national levels. The inhabitants of deserts use plants with medicinal properties for curing various diseases due to shortage of medical facilities and unaffordable prices of pharmaceutical drugs. In this chapter, rigorous field surveys were carried out to report and document plant sources commonly grown on marginal lands such as deserts arid lands and their uses commonly applied in cultural communities. The data were documented using open-ended and semi-structured questionnaires and focus group discussions with local people, herbalists, and traditional health practitioners. The reported plant species were identified using classical and advanced systematic approaches and consultancy of the Herbarium of Pakistan (ISL). The identified dicot species were preserved using standard Herbarium techniques. The data related to uses were authenticated using various databases. The quantitative data were analyzed using various statistical techniques such Relative Frequency and Citation (RFC), Use Value (UV), Cultural Index (CI), and Cultural Value Index (CVI). The number of dicot medicinal plants documented in this study represents evidence that tropical deserts have a high diversity of medicinal plants that continue to play an important role in the healthcare system. This study allows for identifying many high-value medicinal plant species, indicating high potential through sustainable development. Besides, new plant resources will be introduced, and their importance will be disseminated to various herbal industries and markets for further bio-prospecting natural products for drug discovery development.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the Herbarium of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam University, (ISL) for identification of plant specimens and providing lab facilities. We are also grateful to Higher education commission of Pakistan for funding under project No NRPU-7837.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest regarding publication of this book chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Salman Majeed, Muhammad Zafar, Mushtaq Ahmad, Shazia Sultana &  Nabila

  2. Pakistan Academy of Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Mushtaq Ahmad

  3. Faculty of Science and Art, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Bingol University, Bingol, Turkey

    Fethi Ahmet Ozdemir

  4. Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Basic Science of Pharmacy, Adıyaman University, Adıyaman, Turkey

    Omer Kilic

  5. Department of Botany, Division of Science and Technology, Township Campus, University of Education, Lahore, Pakistan

    Ghulam Yaseen

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  1. Salman Majeed
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  2. Muhammad Zafar
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  4. Shazia Sultana
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  5. Fethi Ahmet Ozdemir
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  8. Nabila
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Studies in Stem Cells Cell Therapy and Toxicological Genetics (CeTroGen), Graduate Program in Health and Development in the Midwest RegionFaculty of Medicine (FAMED)Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) Campo Grande, Cidade Universitária, Pioneiros, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

    Karuppusamy Arunachalam

  2. Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Kunming Institute of Botany, Kunming, Yunnan, China

    Xuefei Yang

  3. Department of Botany, NSS College Nemmara, Palakkad, Kerala, India

    Sreeja Puthanpura Sasidharan

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Majeed, S. et al. (2023). Appraisal of Medicinal Plants Diversity Inhabited in Deserts Areas. In: Arunachalam, K., Yang, X., Puthanpura Sasidharan, S. (eds) Bioprospecting of Tropical Medicinal Plants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28780-0_12

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