The importance of the Plant Kingdom for food, medicine, revenue, climate change control etc., is too wide a field to discuss in a short article as this. Its importance is comparable to those of the elementals (Fire, Air, Water and Earth) and certainly more important than the animal kingdom which Man tends to give more attention for conservation.
The Almighty God gave Plants great attention in His third day of Creation. Plant was the first living thing to be created on which other living things including Man inevitably depend. Little wonder most of the common medicinal plants grow naturally around residential areas. Perhaps, it was from this background our forefathers/humans were thought from generation to generation basic knowledge about plants.
Up to the 1960s, most adult male and female especially in the rural communities knew much about plants and their usefulness as food, medicine and source of revenue. In those days, no African woman would look far for a doctor, western or traditional to get a herbal cure for common ailments as convulsion, wounds and bruises, yellow fever, stomach ache, bleeding etc. If she did not know, the immediate neighbours would know the plant to use. Where is that household especially in the rural communities where nobody would not know that Baphia nitida (English – Camwood, Bini – Otua, Yoruba – Osun, Igbo – Uhie, Hausa – Majidi) leaf would stop diarrhea or stooling instantly as Phyllanthus amarus would for stomach/intestinal ache, Cassia alata for skin eczema and Bryophyllum pinnatum for navel cut, to mention but a few. Certainly none!
Most Primary Health Care (PHC) needs were met by these basic knowledge of plants and their usefulness. Even to date, many African rural communities are not served with adequate western/orthodox PHC needs and the rural dwellers still depend on their primordial herbal knowledge.
Therefore, the pertinence of this article is particularly underlined by the trending reversal of humanity from western/orthodox health care to partial dependence on traditional herbal health care system.
Thanks to the Governments of China, India etc. who are spearheading and perfecting this trado-herbal health care system to the extent that the herbal system is given great prominence in their hospitals, university studies and researches. Also, thanks to the World Health Organization (WHO) for its constant and continuous support for herbal medicine practices especially because of its higher safety application with less negative side reactions in comparison with orthodox alternative.
It is gratifying to note here that many African universities have joined the research and perfection races. In the present circumstance, Nigeria and other African countries will soon rediscover that this trado-herbal care system is the best pathway to longevity assurance.
All these point to the need for individual families and small communities to cultivate some common medicinal plants to compliment those already in their immediate environment as our parents and ancestors did in the past. They cultivated these basic plants;
- For easy reach in time of need
- As a source of revenue from sales
- For teaching coming generations in the family and
- To preserve and conserve some rare plant species they needed but which were not available in their areas.
More than ever before, the relevance and need to undertake such planting is further accentuated by current elimination of useful plant species due to bush burning, lumbering and deforestation, uncontrolled urbanisation, farming practices and climate change.
Those who may have problems with identification of these plants, may refer to this Author’s (Roland E. Ehigiamusoe) book “A herbarium of Nigerian Medicinal Plants” 2013, where their local names in Edo, Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa are given.
For lack of Land space or green park, individuals and communities may not be able to plant all these examples. Some could be selected for personal and community benefit. Commercial cultivators are assured of ready market from Traditional Herbal Practitioners/Doctors around their environment.
As a guide, a hundred (100) examples of common medicinal plants that could be grown around houses and communities are listed on our Plant Library section.