Diversity and use of medicinal plants for traditional women's health care in Northern Banyumas, Indonesia

Abstract

This study aimed to record the diversity and utilization of medicinal plants for maintaining women's health in Northern Banyumas (Central Java, Indonesia) using qualitative and quantitative approaches. Semi-structured interviews with 97 informants were conducted to collect data on local plant names, plant parts, herbal preparation, and application of plants used for traditional women's health care. The value and importance of the plants to the people in the surveyed areas were quantitatively determined by the species use-value (SUV), the relative frequency of citation (RFC), and fidelity level (FL). The local community cited 21 plant species belonging to 10 families. The most frequently used plant part, preparation, and application were fruits and rhizomes (32.6% each), infusion (83.7%), and oral (88.4%), respectively. There were four use-category of the plants, i.e., post-partum, pre-menstrual syndrome, lactation stimulant, and leukorrhoea. The most valuable plants were Curcuma longa L., Piper betle L., and Kaempferia galanga L. with SUV of 0.41, 0.34, and 0.21, respectively. The C. longa and P. betle were also recorded as the most important plants with RFC values of 0.63 and 0.40. These findings confirm the status of Zingiberaceae as the main component of jamu (traditional medicine) to maintain women's health.