Ethnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants Used for Wound Healing in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area Enugu State Nigeria

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conventional drugs by the people, high cost of orthodox medicines, low cost of herbal medicines, and easy access to them.Considering that 80% of the indigenes of the local government area practice farming as their major occupation, the area is called the major agricultural zone of the state and one of the top ten local government areas out of 774 in Nigeria (8).The farming activities often resulted in injuries which are sustained during bush clearing and weeding using native cutlasses or matchet.Most of these injuries further developed into different forms of wounds if not quickly treated.Apart from agricultural activities in the area, other factors can be attributed to causing wounds, including social vices such as fighting and various crimes, which are readily noticed in most communities in the area due to a lack of employment and adequate Western education (8).
Wounds are defined as damage to the appearance of body tissues such as mucous membranes, skin, and organs by various factors, including traumas (9,10).Medically, wounds are classified into open and closed types.Wounds that are exposed to the underlying tissues or organs and open to the outside environment are called open wounds (e.g., penetrating wounds such as abrasion, burns, punctures, avulsion, and laceration), while those without underlying tissues or organs are called closed wounds (10).
In addition, some pathological changes which often start from the external or internal of affected organs or tissues may cause wounds.Wounds may occur intentionally or accidentally or as a cumulative effect of a disease pathological process (11,12).Some immunological responses such as bleeding, coagulation of the blood vessel, activation of complement, and inflammation stimulus are often noticed in wound conditions (11).In most rural communities' wounds remained one of the commonly occurring ailments usually associated with intense pain and high treatment costs.Nowadays, wound management methods involve proteolytic enzymes, debridement, tissue grafts antibiotics, and irrigation.These methods have many setbacks such as high costs and invasiveness (13).
The wound healing process refers to all the stages the skin undergoes to repair damages sustained from wounds.These stages include primary, secondary, and tertiary wound healing depending on the type and severity of wounds (10,14).Many plants have been reported to facilitate the wound-healing process and have been successively used to treat various types of wounds in traditional medicine.This is because these plants show wound healing activities using various mechanisms such as reducing bacterial loads, increasing the deposition of collagen, fibroblasts, and fibrocytes, and modulating wound healing (15,16).
The present study sought to survey and document medicinal plants employed by the indigenous rural communities in Uzo-Uwani LGA of Enugu State, Nigeria for wound healing.This study will be relevant also in ecological management, the preservation of traditional knowledge for future generations in rural communities, and the preservation of threatened and endangered species of medicinal plants.

Study Area and Sampling
This study was performed in all seventeen rural communities in Uzo-Uwani LGA Enugu State, Nigeria.These communities included Adaba, Abbi, Nrobo, Ugbene, Nkpologu, Akpugu, Ogurugu, Asabaa, Nkume, Ukpata, Umulokpa, Ojor, Igga, Adani, Ovuru, Nimbo, Umulokpa, and Okpanda.The local government headquarters is Umulokpa.It is located at latitude 6 o 45'N and longitude 7 o 12'E, with 28 º C average temperature and 10 km/h (6.2 mph) average wind speed (16).The major occupation is farming food crops such as rice, yam, cocoyam, maize, millet, guinea corn, and the like, and practicing traditional medicine.The indigenes speak the Igbo language as the major dialect, as well as Igala (strictly by communities bordering Kogi State) and English languages.Their main religion is Christianity mostly Catholics.It borders in the east with Nsukka, Igbo-Etiti, Udi, and Ezeagu LGAs, as well as west and north with Anambra and Kogi States, respectively (Figure 1).The land mass area is 855 km 2 , and it has a population of 124 480 (17) and postal code area of 411.There are variations in flora distribution among various communities, although the convergence of plant species exists in these communities.For instance, densely populated tropical rainforest is found in communities that border Kogi State in the north, and these communities have the largest distribution of tree species.

Ethnobotanical Survey
A field trip was conducted between March and September 2022.The major respondents used in the current study were highly knowledgeable traditional medicine practitioners, herb sellers, herbalists, and community elders randomly selected from each of the rural communities in the Uzo-Uwani LGA (18).Personal information collected from each respondent included name, age, gender, rural community, years of experience in the use of medicinal plants, and education level (Table 1).The consents of informants were voluntarily sort for responses, and they were assured that collected data would be strictly applied for academic purposes and acknowledgment in the end.Having satisfied the basic requirements for the study in the rural communities, several data were gathered, including medicinal plants used for wound healing, local name, mode of collection, conservation or accessibility of plants, applied parts, methods of preparation, and modes of administration.The data were collected by means of oral interviews and 200 semi-structured questionnaires (19,20).The plants were identified by Mr. C.A. Ukwubile (a taxonomist) assisted by PlantSnap application software (updated 2022).Medicinal plant names were validated to ensure the correct families, genera, species, and authorities from plant data archives (http://www.ipni.org/)and the Royal Botanic Garden Kew (http://www.theplantlist.org/).
Ethnomedicinal survey of woundhealing plants in Uzo-Uwani LGA The voucher specimens of the plants were compared with those of the herbarium of forest guides in rural communities.

Quantitative Data Analysis
The surveyed medicinal plants used for wound healing in this study were arranged in alphabetical order according to their families and tabulated under the headings, including families, scientific names, local (Igbo) names, applied parts, modes of preparations, identification codes, and references.The obtained results were further analyzed using some ethnobotanical quantitative data parameters such as percentage use value (UV), fidelity level (FL), informant consensus factor (ICF), Rahman's similarity  Survey questions: (1) How many years have you been practicing traditional medicine?
(2) Where did you learn it from?
(3) Which plant/Igbo name do you use for wound healing?(4) How do you collect the plant?(Wild, domesticated, and wild/cultivated) (5) Which part(s) of the plant(s) do you use? (6) How do you prepare them before use?(Decoction, infusion, concoction, powder, ointment, tea, and the like) (7) How long does it take to heal a wound?

Percentage Use Value
This is the percentage of respondents that have knowledge about medicinal plant use for wound healing.The high UV indicates the relative importance of the species (21).It was calculated from the following formula: Number of respondents that mentioned the use of t 0 he plant Total number of U interviewed r = V espondents ×10 (1)

Fidelity Level
The percentage of respondents that mention the use of a particular medicinal plant for wound healing is called the FL.The parameter demonstrated the choice of a respondent for a particular medicinal plant for wound healing over another plant.It represents how important a species is over the other for a particular use (22)(23)(24).It is determined using the following formula: where Np denotes the number of respondents who indicated the use of a specific medicinal plant for wound healing, and N is the overall number of cited the plant for the disease.

Informant Consensus Factor
This is a factor employed to show the cultural importance of a medicinal plant and the agreement for its use (25).It is calculated to test the levels of uniformity or consistency of the respondent's knowledge of the remedy for a disease, and its value is usually from zero to one.A high value represented that there was agreement among informants in the use of the plants.The formula is as follows: where NoUR denotes the number of useful reports in each rural community, while Nto indicates the total number of medicinal plants used for wound healing in each rural community.

Rahman's Similarity Index
This index was utilized to determine the similarities and differences among rural communities regarding the knowledge of traditional medicine (26)(27)(28).It demonstrates the similarities in culture between rural communities in the study areas by calculating particular medicinal plants applied for wound healing.The percentage of similar plants used between rural communities was computed using the formula: where A and B represent the number of medicinal plants specific to a community and the number of medicinal plants specific to other communities, respectively.Moreover, C and D denote species found in all communities and common plants used for wound healing in all communities, respectively.

Relative Frequency Citation
It indicates the importance of each medicinal plant within a locality or area, as shown by its frequency of citations (29,30).The RFC index is calculated by applying the following formula: where Fc is the number of respondents citing the medicinal plants for use in wound healing, while N denotes the total number of respondents in the surveyed areas without citing the plants.

Demographic Information
Out of the total 32 informants interviewed in the rural communities, 18 (56.25%)cases were males, while 14 (43.75%) of them were females.In addition, those with one or more categories of education were 37.5%, and uneducated ones were 62.5% (Table 2).Information on the use of these medicinal plants was acquired by the respondents from their parents, oral history, and experienced traditional medicine practitioners.Age demography of respondents showed that those above 50 years were more with 46.88%, followed by those ages 40-49 (37.5%).The survey also represented that 75% of the respondents were married, while 25% were either unmarried, separated, or widowed.

Ethnobotanical Indices of Surveyed Medicinal Plants
The quantitative indices from the field study are presented in Table 3

Discussion
The use of medicinal plants among rural communities in Uzo-Uwani LGA had increased in recent times due to the lack of adequate hospitals in about 80% of the rural communities.In the study areas, traditional medicine is often practiced by males and females (old and young) who gained their knowledge from their grandparents majorly (25,28).The transfer of this knowledge was handed over from generation to generation because access to the modern healthcare system has continued to be out of reach to most people in areas where they are mainly low-income   Note.N = 26 and n = 33, where N and n represent the total number of families and the total number of species, respectively.In addition, a denotes plants whose wound-healing activities have been determined, and b implies plants whose wound-healing activities have not been determined.Ethnomedicinal survey of woundhealing plants in Uzo-Uwani LGA earners, uneducated, peasant farmers, and artisans.The variations in the geographical distribution of these plants among rural communities could be attributed to climatic conditions such as rainfall, as well as edaphic factors, including soil and mineral elements present in the soil (59).In this study, there is an abundance of medicinal plant species utilized for wound healing in the Ogurugu (66.67%) and Adani (35.36%) communities when compared to other communities (Figures 1 and 2, Table 2).For instance, the presence of forest reserves and rivers in the Ogurugu and Adani communities may have also contributed to the abundance of these plants in the areas.The least number of medicinal plants applied for wound healing in rural communities such as Nkpologu (18.18%) may be due to the presence of mountains and the rocky nature of the soil which do not support plants' abundant growth (59).The abundance of these plants in the forests of the surveyed areas has resulted in the wild as the mostly used method of collection for these plants in the surveyed areas (Figure 4).Wild collection of plants has been described as the simplest and commonest method in traditional medicine (1,5).Similarly, the findings demonstrated that the leaves and stembarks are the most employed parts for wound healing in the areas, respectively (Figure 5).The decoctions of these parts are the most applied mode of preparation in the areas (Figure 5).These results are consistent with reports by other researchers on ethnomedicinal surveys (7,60).
In the current study, Fabaceae, Asteraceae, and Rubiaceae families were dominantly used for wound healing (Table 2, Figure 3).These medicinal plants consist of trees (51.31%), herbs (33.33%), and shrubs (15.15%).These families have previously been reported by other researchers to be applied in wound healing (60,61).These plant families have shown numerous taxonomic and biological importance.For instance, the Fabaceae family is unarguably one of the largest families of angiosperms with several economic and biological importance.This family was previously called Leguminosae or Papilionaceae because it was a member of the pea or legume family with over 20 000 medicinal plant species distributed worldwide.Many of the members are capable of fixing nitrogen in the soil, anticancer, antiulcer, wound healing, antimalaria, and antidiabetic agents, as well as ornamental in function.The highest percentage in the use of the Fabaceae family (21.21%) for wound healing in this present study further confirms the ethnomedicinal relevance of the family.Similarly, members of the Asteraceae family have been reported to possess anticancer and wound healing activities in both in vitro and in vivo experiments (62,63).The families of these plants have the presence of phytochemical constituents such as alkaloids, terpenes, sesquiterpenes, flavonoids, tannins, and phytosterols that are responsible for their biological activities (62)(63)(64).
From the study findings, P. angolensis had a UV of 1.04%, FL of 100%, ICF value of 0.66, and RSI of 84.06% and ranked the highest in the treatment of wounds in most communities.The medicinal value of P. angolensis has been documented by other researchers (60,65).The plants have been employed as anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antiulcer, antioxidant, and antidiabetic agents in traditional medicine in Africa, especially in southeast Nigeria.The high values of these indices (Table 4) for the plant showed the cultural beliefs in the use of this plant and others in the study areas.Despite the preferred use of the plant (P.angolensis) for wound healing, its frequency of citation on wound healing is low.Based on the results, the fact that these plants were mostly collected from the wild does not endanger them since there are cultural laws regarding the use of plants.According to the informants, plants are carefully collected to allow for the fresh growth of new ones.The study further confirmed that in most communities in the study areas, the surveyed plants are not mixed with other plants for wound healing.Healing of wounds no matter the type of wound takes a maximum of four weeks, and the findings have confirmed this issue based on the analyzed indices from the fifteen most prominently used medicinal plants in the areas.Although some of these plants have been cited, some were not evaluated biologically for wound-healing activities (Tables 3 and 4).Finally, the indigenous people of Uzo-Uwani LGA typically used medicinal plants for the treatment and management of various human diseases.They have preserved and conserved the ethnobotanical cultural knowledge passed to generations by grandparents.

Conclusion
Our study findings demonstrated that most of these plants used for wound healing are collected from the wild.This trend combined with the rapid force of urbanization may threaten the existence of these plants, especially in communities such as Ogurugu, Adani, Umulokpa, Nkpologu, and Ukpabi in the future if neglecting the cultural laws.The results further revealed that medicinal plants with high UV, FL, RSI, and ICF values can be evaluated further for their wound healing activities so as to validate the acclaimed ethnobotanical use, resulting in the isolation of novel compounds with wound healing potentials.Lastly, previous reports by other researchers on the wound-healing activities of most of the surveyed plants in this study further justify the use of these medicinal plants for wound healing in Uzo-Uwani LGA.Moreover, the use of these 22 plant families to effectively manage and treat all types of wounds in these areas has been judged to be satisfactory by the indigenes of the areas because permanent healing was achieved in most cases.It is suggested, therefore, that medicinal plants from this study, which have not been evaluated for wound-healing activities, should be screened to validate these claims.

Figure 5 .Figure 6 .
Figure 5. Uses of Plants' Parts for Wound Healing in Study Areas

Table 1 .
Questionnaire Used for the Ethnobotanical Survey

Table 3 .
Medicinal Used for Wound Healing in Uzo-Uwani LGA Enugu State Nigeria

Table 4 .
The Most Commonly Used Medicinal Plants for Wound Healing in Study Areas (n = 15) Note.UV: Use value; FL: Fidelity level; ICF Informant consensus factor; RSI: Rahman's similarity index; RFC: Relative frequency citation; ND: Not determined.