ETHNO-MEDICO BOTANICAL STUDY AMONG THE FOUR INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES OF BANDARBAN , BANGLADESH

This paper provides ethno-botanical information on 70 plant species under 36 families and these species were in common use among the Bwam, the Marma, the Murang and the Tanchangya communities of Bandarban hill district. Ethno-medicinal uses along with their scientific names, families, local names, voucher numbers and uses are enumerated. Quantitative analysis shows that the Marma tribe uses the higher number of species followed by the Tanchangya, the Murang and the Bwam. Similarity index indicates that the Marma, the Tanchangya and the Murang have higher similarities for ethno-botanical knowledge among four tribes. The most widely used medicinal plants are Cassia obtusifolia L., Centella asiatica (L) Urban., Costus speciosus Smith, Emilia sonchifolia DC., Litsea glutinosa (Lour.) Roxb., Melothria indica Lour. and Premna esculenta Roxb. Fever, cough, menstrual problem, diarrhoea, dysentery, tumor and skin diseases seem to be common problems treated using plants by the tribal communities in Bandarban district. Introduction Bandarban hill district is the second largest district of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) with an area of 4,502 sq. km. It is situated in the southeast of Bangladesh and located between 21o25 and 23o45 N and between 91o45 and 92o50 E (Alam and Mohiuddin, 2008). Geographically it is a part of the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan region of the continent (Khan et al., 2007). Landform of Bandarban is mainly composed of high hills (20%), medium hills (22%), low hills (31%) and the rest is valley land. Eleven tribes (ethnic groups) are living in different hilly areas of Bandarban district (Banglapedia, 2006). The Bwam, the Marma, the Murang, and the Tanchangya are the dominant tribes and constitute 70% hill population of this district (Khan et al., 2007). They have their own culture, tradition and primary health care system acquired through close observation of nature. These tribal people has a close relation with surrounding flora and using different plant parts as food, medicine, dye, soap and other purposes from the time immemorial in their day to day life. Bandarban district is rich in floristic composition of medicinal plants, and the tribal herbal healers locally called “Bhaidya” use these plants in preparing traditional medicine. Ethnomedicinal knowledge plays an important role in identifying plants of therapeutic agents (Balick, 1990). Ethno-botanical samples contain novel drug compounds and helps to find out economically important plant based drugs (Cox and Balick, 1994). Like the other parts of the world, a good number of the people of Bandarban hill district still depend upon the herbal healers and herbal medicine for treatments. Corresponding author. Email: uddinm59@gmail.com Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh.


Introduction
Bandarban hill district is the second largest district of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) with an area of 4,502 sq.km.It is situated in the southeast of Bangladesh and located between 21º25 / and 23º45 / N and between 91º45 / and 92º50 / E (Alam and Mohiuddin, 2008).Geographically it is a part of the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan region of the continent (Khan et al., 2007).Landform of Bandarban is mainly composed of high hills (20%), medium hills (22%), low hills (31%) and the rest is valley land.Eleven tribes (ethnic groups) are living in different hilly areas of Bandarban district (Banglapedia, 2006).The Bwam, the Marma, the Murang, and the Tanchangya are the dominant tribes and constitute 70% hill population of this district (Khan et al., 2007).They have their own culture, tradition and primary health care system acquired through close observation of nature.These tribal people has a close relation with surrounding flora and using different plant parts as food, medicine, dye, soap and other purposes from the time immemorial in their day to day life.
Bandarban district is rich in floristic composition of medicinal plants, and the tribal herbal healers locally called "Bhaidya" use these plants in preparing traditional medicine.Ethnomedicinal knowledge plays an important role in identifying plants of therapeutic agents (Balick, 1990).Ethno-botanical samples contain novel drug compounds and helps to find out economically important plant based drugs (Cox and Balick, 1994).Like the other parts of the world, a good number of the people of Bandarban hill district still depend upon the herbal healers and herbal medicine for treatments.
Several ethno-medicinal studies in Bangladesh have been carried out by Alam (1992), Hassan and Khan (1996), Rahman et al. (1998), Rahman and Uddin (1998), Rahman (2003), Rahman et al. (2003), Uddin et al. (2004) and Yusuf et al. (2006Yusuf et al. ( , 2007)).However, there is very limited information on the ethno-medicinal plants used by the tribal communities of Bandarban hill district.This study aims to document ethno-medicinal plants used for the treatment of different diseases by four tribes of Bandarban district namely the Bwam, the Marma, the Murang, and the Tanchangya communities to make a quantitative analysis of botanical knowledge of these tribes.

Materials and Methods
A series of exploration in the tribal areas of Bandarban district have been conducted for a period of four years through 2003 to2007.During the study we visited different tribal paras (villages) of three Upazillas namely Bandarban Sadar, Lama and Rwangcharai during different seasons for collecting the ethnomedicinal plants.The Marma and the Tanchangya tribes have herbal healers, locally called 'Bhaidya'.The other two tribes (the Bwam and the Murang) generally do not have herbal healers.For the study we collected plant specimens in different seasons along with necessary information with the help of herbal healers from the surrounding forests areas.Collated information was cross checked in the field to validate the gathered information.Collected samples were processed and authentically identified consulting the pertinent literatures, viz.Hooker (1872Hooker ( -1897)), Prain (1903), Brandis (1906) and Kanjilal et al. (1934Kanjilal et al. ( , 1938Kanjilal et al. ( , 1939Kanjilal et al. ( , 1940)).The voucher specimens are housed in Bangladesh Forest Research Institute Herbarium, Chittagong.In this paper the common species between and among the four tribes have been enumerated.Local names are given in italics followed by the tribal name in parenthesis in abbreviated form (B for Bwam, M for Marma, Mu for Murang and T for Tanchangya).Prior consent of the knowledge providers were taken for documentation and further sharing.

Results and Discussion
The plants used by four tribes in Bandarban district are summarized in Table 1.A comparative analysis of the number of ethno-medicinal plants used by the four tribes showed that the Marma tribe uses the highest number of species (48 species), followed by the Tanchangya (43 species), the Murang (34 species) and lowest by the Bwam (6 species).Costus speciosus, Emila sonchifolia and Prema esculenta were common among the four tribes.Alpinia nigra, Cassia obtusifolia, Centella asiatica, Emblica officinalis, Melthoria indica, Sarcochlamys pulcherrima, Solanum torvum and Spilanthes calva were common species among the Marma, the Murang and the Tanchangya.Similarity index showed that 29 species were common between Tanchangya and Marma, 25 species were common between Murang and Marma, 9 species were common between Tanchangya and Murang (Table 2).Six species were common for Bwam and Marma.Five species were common for Bwam and Murang.Three species were common for Tanchangya and Bwam.The present findings indicated that the plant use pattern by different tribes is different, and number of common species used by different tribes is very limited.Use of more plants by the Marma tribe for different purposes indicates that they have more knowledge-base about the plant use than other three tribes.