Medicinal Plants Diversity in Traditional Treatment of Rejang Ethnic Communities in Rejang Lebong Regency as a Resource for Learning Plant Taxonomy

Abstract

The Rejang ethnic is one of the largest ethnics in Bengkulu Province, generally domiciled in Rejang Lebong Regency, Lebong. One of the local wisdoms of this tribal community until now is to practice traditional medicine as a cultural heritage, but most of it is passed on to the next generation by oral tradition, thus allowing this knowledge to be reduced from generation to generation and not well documented. For this reason, exploration and documentation of medicinal plants are needed so that the traditional healing culture is not lost. Documentation in writing is indispensable for the development of traditional medicine in the future and to be integrated in learning as a source of teaching materials based on local wisdom to bring back cultural values for future generations. This research aims to study the diversity of plants used in traditional disease treatment by The Rejang ethnic, their conservation, and identification of the dominant family taxon groups were selected as learning sources. The research was conducted in Pasar Tengah Sub-District, Teladan, Air Pikat Village, Rejang Lebong Regency, using observation, and interview methods on Bahtera and selected informants by purposive sampling. The results of the study found 101 species, 50 families of medicinal plants that can treat 90 kinds of diseases traditionally such as malaria, cancer, stomachache, skin diseases, diarrhea, fever and others. Medicinal plants are generally planted in the yard. The dominant taxon families with the number of species (sp) are: Zingiberaceae (8sp), Euphorbiaceae (7sp), Fabaceae (6sp), Achantaceae (6sp) Solanaceae (5sp), Lamiaceae (5), Asteraceae (4sp) that can be used as a learning resource to understand the characteristics of selected family groups.