Ethnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants in Atakpamé, City of Plateau Region in Togo

Abstract

Aim: Plants are a great source of active substances and are used to cure a lot of diseases. In order to know and list medicinal plants used by traditional therapists and herbalists from the town of Atakpamé, an ethnobotanical investigation has been conducted. Methodology: It is a transversal and descriprtive study that has been carried out from 22th December 2018 to 16th March 2019. Results: It has been conducted nearby 10 traditional therapists and 20 herbalists by direct interviews using a structured questionnaire. The traditional therapists were all men and the herbalists all women. This study has enabled to list 61 species belonging to 30 families grouped into 56 genera, used in the treatment of 30 affections and symptoms. The botanical families more represented were Euphorbiaceae with 8 species, Caesalpiniaceae and Apocynaceae with 5 species each. The most used organs in the recipes are leaves (44,26%). The decoction (47,54%) is the most used mode of preparation. The oral route (76,47%) is the most frequently way of administration. The most healed affections were malaria, infections and anemia with the same percentage of 16,76%. The majority of medicinal recipes are monospecifics. Conclusion: The results of this study can be a source of information for scientific researches in phytochemistry and pharmacology.