Comparative Ethnobotanical Study of Medicinal Plant Use among Gond and Kolam Tribes in Yavatmal District

Abstract

This paper is a comparative ethnobotanical study on medicinal plants of the Gond and Kolam tribes in Yavatmal District, Maharashtra. This study was intended to obtain, measure, and compare traditional knowledge systems that were used to treat some ailments. Semi-structured interviews of 143 informants (75 Gond and 68 Kolam) were used in the field; plant samples were also compared to herbarium materials. Other quantitative measures such as Informant Consensus Factor (ICF), Use Value (UV), Fidelity Level (FL), Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC) and Jaccard Similarity Index were also applied to check the trend and overlaps in plant use. Data analysis was performed using SPSS Version 26.0. Eighty seven barriers of medicines were described where gastrointestinal and respiratory ailments had ICF of 0.87 and 0.84 respective. The UV was rated greater among Kolam informants in regard to Andrographis paniculata and Gond appealed to Azadirachta indica. The results of the Jaccard Index were that there was a percentage overlap of 37.9 between the groups. These findings show that the system of medicinal knowledge is subdivided and, nevertheless, partially similar with significant cultural peculiarities and a need to develop local conservation efforts and further ethno-pharmacological studies.