The medicinal plants utilized by Butuanon in Butuan City, Philippines

Abstract

The Butuanon is one of the ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines. The artefacts discovered by the locals and treasure hunters in Butuan City demonstrated that Butuanon is rich in history, culture, and tradition. However, they need more records of their traditional healthcare knowledge and practices. Therefore, this study documented Butuanon’s traditional knowledge and practices for managing illnesses and diseases using medicinal plants. Thirteen key informants were identified and interviewed through the snowball technique after obtaining their consent. The informants used a total of 132 plant species, which correspond to 116 genera and 57 families. The highest-represented family was Fabaceae, followed by Lamiaceae, with 11 and nine species, respectively. Many of the documented plants were herbaceous (37%), followed by trees (29%), shrubs (23%), and vines (11%). The informants commonly used leaves (43%), followed by roots (15%), bark (12%), fruit (7%), and flowers (5%). These plant species treated 93 different illnesses and diseases, of which fever had the highest number of plants used (18%), followed by diabetes (17%), urinary tract infection (16%), cough (15%), hypertension (14%), diarrhoea (11%), cuts and wounds (11%), relapse (8%), kidney dysfunction and disease (6%), and arthritis (6%). In conclusion, this study sheds light on the Butuanon community’s ongoing utilization of medicinal plants for their healthcare needs. This underscores the need to preserve their traditional alternative medicine and conserve Philippine medicinal plants.