Wound Healing Plants of Jalgaon District of Maharashtra State, India

Jalgaon District of Maharashtra state (India) has a great heritage and rich in various green and semi evergreen species. Record of 3347 species from 201 families appeared in earlier literature from Jalgaon District. A list of 283 wound healing plants of Indian origin is compiled; out of these 224 plants are native of Maharashtra, a 131 plants among them occurred in Jalgaon District, which are in practice by local herbalist, Vaidyas and nonregistered medical practitioners and Mukhiya (Head) of tribal community. Taxonomical distribution showed 93.63% dicot and 6.37% monocot and a single aquatic plant. The investigation revealed that wound healing natural products usually localized in root (27% ) > leaves (20%) > stem > seed > whole plant > fruit > flower > rhizome > tuber > shoot > stamen > grain > gall > filament and plant product like latex (46%), oil (40%) , gum and resin (7%) as evident from this survey. Most of the remedies consisted of either single plant part or combination. Methods of preparation varies and they are species specific viz: plant parts applied as a paste, juice extracted from the fresh plant parts, powder made from fresh or dried plant parts, some fresh plant parts, and decoction. In this study the most dominant family was Leguminosae and roots were most frequently used for wound healing. Here an attempt has also been made to work out on plants belonging to Jalgaon District in order to exploit them for preparation of ointment that can be used both in human and domestic animals.