What is Ethnobotany?

Indigenous knowledge is as old as human civilisation but the term ethnobotany was first coined by an American botanist, John Harshburger, in 1896, to study the plants used by the primitive and aboriginal people. Since then it has been defined as the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities, about surrounding plant diversity and as the study of how the people of a particular culture and region make use of indigenous plants.
Ethnobotany has its roots in botany. Botany, in turn originated in part from an interest in finding plants to help fight illness. In fact, medicine and botany have close ties. Many of today's drugs have been derived from plant resources.

Pakistan is one of the few places on earth with such a unique biodiversity, comprising of different climatic zones with a wide range of plant species.

Approx. 6000 plant species with medicinal properties are found in Pakistan. There is a dire need on the part of manufacturers of allopathic and herbal medicines to carryout extensive research on medicinal plants to save foreign exchange spend on their imports.

Indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants is fast diminishing because as more plants are lost, so is the knowledge of their value to humanity.

"Ethnobotany is the study of how the people of a particular culture and regions makes the use of indigenous plants", while the ethnobotanist explores how plants are used for such things as food shelter, medicine, clothing, hunting and religious ceremonies. It is the science, which studies "the relationship between a given society and its environment and in particular the plant world".

"The study of direct interaction between human and plant population through its culture each human plants, developed attitudes, believes and learn the use of plants, while human behavior has a direct impact on the plant communities with which they interact, the plants themselves also impose limitations on humans, these mixtures interactions are focuses of ethnobotany''.

Since the beginning of human civilisation, people have used plants as medicine. Perhaps as early as Neanderthal man, plants were believed to have healing power. The earliest uses are found in Babylonian circa 1770 BC in the code of Hammurabi and in ancient Egypt circa 1550 BC. In fact, ancient Egyptians believed medicinal plants to have utility even in the after life of their pharaohs. Plants have been recorded from the Giza pyramids and can be found on display in a dark corner of Cairo Museum.

Traditional Unani medicine is a part of our culture and Pakistan is one of those countries where traditional Unani medicine is popularly practised among the large segment of its population. It originated in Greece, founded by old ancient Greek philosophers, and was used/documented by Muslims during the glorious period of Islamic civilisation.
It was brought to the Indo-Pak subcontinent by Muslim scholars and practised here for centuries. It also benefited from the Ayurvedic system of medicine, which was an important component of Hindu civilisation. Traditional Unani medicine heavily depends on medicinal plants, apart from using animals and minerals. Pakistan has a varied climate and is quite rich in medicinal herbs, though scattered over a large area. All the plants are growing wild and no systematic attempt has been made to collect and cultivate herbs in an appropriate.