Man is using plants for curing different diseases for several hundred years. In Pakistan, rangelands and forests are the major sources of medicinal plants, and the residents of different areas including those of the Vanhar Valley depend upon local plants for the medication of several diseases. However, this study was planned to enlist the indigenous medicinally important flora, which will help in conservation of the vanishing knowledge about the indigenous plants of the area by proper documentation. In order to document the uses of indigenous plants, some surveys were conducted for the collection of all available species. For the documentation of uses of these indigenous plant species, 55 experts were interviewed and their knowledge was documented. A total of 41 species belonging to 25 families were recorded from the Vanhar Valley. High numbers of species of families Fabaceae, Amaranthaceae and Asteraceae were used for the cure of several diseases like sexual disorders, piles, asthma, sputum, stomach disorders, diabetes, etc. It was evident that the older people had most of the knowledge about the indigenous plants of the Valley, while the young lacked such knowledge due to the death of older people without documenting or transferring the knowledge to them. With conservation of the knowledge, these plants can be used as a low-cost and effective treatment of many common diseases.
Among the environmental problems, salinity is one of the major threats to agriculture around the globe which affects more than 6% of the available land on earth. However halophytes are blessed with the ability to cope with high salinity by various mechanisms. The present study was aimed to explore adaptive components of Cyperus exaltatus which is now growing widely at a number of saline areas across the Pakistan. Extensive trips were made across the country to collect the populations of Cyperus exaltatus from all sorts of environments with varying levels of salinity. The morphological study of ecotypes showed that many growth parameters were affected negatively under higher salinity. However, root length, shoot length, plant height, shoot fresh and dry weight showed a high association with hyper saline sites. Moreover the physiological parameters such as proline content, total soluble proteins and total soluble sugars were accumulated in higher concentrations among populations at hyper saline sites while in lower concentrations at moderately saline and less saline sits which may have supported the production of higher biomass under salinity. The results show that the plants like Cyperus exaltatus can be grown under various types of environmental stresses especially under salinity. Thus the barren saline lands can be used to produce fodder as well as the growth of plants may also help to reduce the levels of salinity in such areas.
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