Medicinal plants with therapeutic uses in indigenous communities located in the ‎foothills of Sabalan (Case study: Meshginshahr city, Ardabil province)‎

In recent decades, the scientific community of the world has paid particular attention to ‎the local and indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants and ethnobotany science. The ‎purpose of this study was to introduce the culture of traditional use of medicinal herbs in ‎Meshginshahr city for treatment of diseases. For this purpose, local names, medicinal ‎properties, method of use and other information of medicinal species were collected at the ‎same time. In this study information of 25 families and 55 medicinal species was recorded ‎from the region. The Lamiaceae, Asteraceae and Fabaceae families had the highest ‎number of plant species, respectively. The most used medicinal plants in this region were ‎applied for treatment of different ailments including, gastrointestinal, infectious and anti-‎inflammatory and pain. Most herbal species were used to treat gastrointestinal diseases, ‎which 64% of informant people reported this. Maximum number of plant species was ‎used for treatment of gastrointestinal diseases (50%), which 64% of informants noted this ‎subject. In the otrher hand, the least used plants species were related to fungal and ‎parasitic diseases (8%). The most used medicinal organs were leaf, flowering shoot and ‎flower, respectively, which most of them were used as either boiled or bloated. Various ‎medicinal species in Meshkinshahr‏ ‏and the growing interest among people to use ‎medicinal herbs, gives the promise to take an important step in order to resistive economy ‎by developing employment projects based on the cultivation and processing of medicinal ‎plants.‎