Ethnobotanical Study of Medicinal Herbs in the Saïss Urban Commune (Region of Fez/Morocco)

Abstract

Medicinal plants have long been known to improve human health. Despite the development of synthetic chemistry, medicinal herbs are still widely used, thanks to their efficacy and exploitation at all therapeutic levels. An ethnobotanical study of herbal medicines was conducted in Saïss, Fez. The primary objective of this endeavor was to create a comprehensive catalog of medicinal herbs and collect valuable information on their therapeutic uses from the indigenous community in the research area. Employing a questionnaire-based approach, the ethnobotanical research identified 63 distinct species belonging to 30 different types of medicinal herbs. The results of this study showed that the Lamiaceae family is primarily represented by a total of 14 species (22.58%). In ethnobotanical and pharmacological terms, foliage (36%) is the most used part, and decoction (39%) is the most common galenic form. Likewise, digestive (22.50%) and metabolic (18.33%) diseases are the most mentioned among the treated infections.