BackgroundTraditional medicine remains the only health care available in many rural areas in Madagascar like the rural community of Ambalabe, located in a very remote area in the eastern part of the country. With limited access to modern medicine, the local population uses medicinal plants to treat most diseases. In this study, we aimed to inventory medicinal plants used by local people and how those relate to the treatment of the most frequent diseases encountered in Ambalabe.MethodsWe interviewed participants in order to identify the most frequent diseases in the region and the medicinal plants used to treat them. The local physician was asked about the most frequent diseases, and ethnobotanical surveys to record medicinal plants and their uses, using semi-structured interviews and free listing, were conducted among 193 informants in local villages, of which 54 % were men and 46 % were women, ageing from 16 to 86 years. The local names, the uses of each plant species and the way they are prepared and administered were recorded and accompanied by herbarium specimens for identification. We also interviewed four traditional healers to elicit more details on the preparation and the use of plants.ResultsOur research allowed us to identify six most frequent diseases, namely diarrhea, malaria, stomach-ache, cough, bilharzia and dysentery. Among 209 plant species identified as having medicinal use, 83 species belonging to 49 families and 77 genera were used to treat these diseases. Our analyses highlighted the 11 commonly used species for their treatment, and also 16 species with a high fidelity level (FL ≥ 75 %) for each ailment. Diarrhea is one of the diseases with high number of species recorded.ConclusionsThis study highlighted the closed relationship between people in Ambalabe and plant species, especially when faced with frequent diseases. However, most of the species used were collected in the surroundings of the villages. Few species were from Vohibe forest in which a management system on the use of plant species was already established. Therefore, a sustainable use management should be considered for wild species from which medicinal plants are highly abundant.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13002-015-0050-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The influence of carbon sources and polyethylene glycol combined with 0.45 and 0.9% (w/v) of gellan gum on the maturation of maritime pine somatic embryos was tested. The effect of the carbon source and polyethylene glycol varied widely between lines. One out of the five lines tested showed a striking response to polyethylene glycol (PEG) treatment; the addition of this osmoticum limited the embryonal-suspensor mass (ESM) proliferation while it enhanced the maturation rate. Conversely, the ESM proliferation was stimulated by PEG in the other lines without subsequent improvement of the maturation rate. The use of a high concentration of gellan gum (0.9%) improved the maturation of the five ESM lines. It was concluded that the most efficient culture medium to recover cotyledonary embryos from all lines is one supplemented with sucrose at 6% (w/v) and gellan gum at 0.9% (w/v) without PEG. The determining factor in the maturation of maritime pine somatic embryos is the genotype and/or the quality of ESM. The possible relationship between maturation performances and ESM morphology, particularly the suspensor organization, is discussed.

AbstractsBackgroundThis paper reports a study undertaken in three remote communities (Mahaboboka, Amboronabo, Mikoboka), located in Sakaraha, Southwestern Madagascar. Not only villages are far away from sanitary infrastructures and doctors but drugs and consulting fees are unaffordable to villagers. They rely essentially on natural resources for health care as for most of rural areas in Madagascar. This paper aims to document medicinal plants used by communities in Sakaraha and to present the most important plant species used in traditional medicine.MethodsSemi – structured interview was conducted within 214 informants in 34 villages of the study area. Different ailments encountered in the site study were classified in various categories. For data analysis, frequency of citation (Fq), Informant Consensus Factor (Fic), Fidelity Level (FL) and Use Value (UV) were assessed to find agreement among informants about the use of plants as remedies. Mann-Whitney, Kruskall-Wallis and Spearman correlation tests were performed to determine use of medicinal plants following social status of informants.ResultsA total of 235 medicinal plant species belonging to 198 genera and 75 families were inventoried. The richest families in species used for medicinal purposes were: Fabaceae, Apocynaceae, Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Asteraceae, and Poaceae. Plant species cited by informants were used to treat 76 various ailments classified in 13 categories. Leaves and leafy twigs were the most used plant parts and decoction was the mostly cited way of preparation of these medicinal plants species. In average, local people cited 6.7 ± 6.03 medicinal taxa among them, Cedrelopsis grevei is the most cited medicinal plants (Fq. 0.28). With Cedrelopsis grevei (UV = 0.48), Henonia scoparia (UV = 0.43) are mostly used species. Leonotis nepetifolia (FL = 96%) and Strychnos henningsii (FL = 92%) are plant species claimed by high percentage of informants to treat the Digestive System Disorder.ConclusionsThis study highlighted that medicinal plants used by people from three communities in the Southwestern Madagascar are diverse. These plants species ensure care to all family members including babies, children, mothers and adult people. Through this study, newly reported medicinal plants were identified for further work.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13002-017-0147-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

No abstract

The pantropical genus Vanilla is a member of the Orchidaceae family, one of the largest and most diverse families of angiosperms in the world. It originated in America and differentiated in America, Africa, and Asia. About 132 species of Vanilla have now been accepted since the discovery of the genus. Within the Vanilla genus, leaflessness has appeared at least three independent times, in Africa, Asia, and America as an adaptation to drought conditions. The South-West Indian Ocean (SWIO) region, a biodiversity hotspot for orchids, is home to seven leafless species. Chloroplast markers failed to differentiate species within this recent SWIO clade. Morphological traits used for description are very similar between species and do not provide reliable identification. Moreover, some of the species have overlapping flowering periods and geographic distribution in Madagascar, increasing the probability of finding some sympatric species and, therefore, hybrids. Leafless Vanilla species from the SWIO islands are thus an excellent model for understanding the evolution of orchids. For their conservation, and to confirm the identity of these leafless species, an integrated approach with classical taxonomy using a large number of samples, intense fieldwork on biology and ecology, and molecular studies using variable markers is necessary.

Drug resistance is a major obstacle in antibiotic and antitumor chemotherapy. In response to the necessity to find new therapeutic strategies, plant secondary metabolites including essential oils (EOs) may represent one of the best sources. EOs in plants act as constitutive defenses against biotic and abiotic stress, and they play an important role in the pharmacology for their low toxicity, good pharmacokinetic and multitarget activity. In this context, natural products such as EOs are one of the most important sources of drugs used in pharmaceutical therapeutics. The aim of this paper was to identify the chemical composition of the essential oil of Alluaudia procera leaves, obtained by hydrodistillation and analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and to verify its biological activities on acute myeloid leukemia cancer cell HL60 and its multidrugresistant variant HL60R and the Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus exhibiting multi-antibiotic resistance. We speculate that cytotoxic and antibiotic effects observed in the tested resistant models may be due to the coordinate activities of forty compounds detected or to the C16 macrocyclic lactones which are the major ones (30%). Our data confirm the possibility of using EOs as therapeutic strategies in resistant models is due to the heterogeneous composition of the oils themselves.

BackgroundKnown worldwide as the “traveler’s tree”, the Malagasy endemic species Ravenala madagascariensis Sonn. (Strelitziaceae) is considered as an iconic symbol of Madagascar. It is a widespread species in the eastern part of the country with four different varieties which are well represented in Ambalabe community. All of them are used for different purposes and the species represents an important cultural value in the lives of the local population. However, uses of Ravenala are only generally well known by local population. Thus, in this study, we report on the different uses of Ravenala and its importance to the Ambalabe local people.MethodsSemi-structured interviews among 116 people, 59 men and 57 women with ages ranging from 17 to 84 years old, free listing and market surveys were conducted in order to collect the vernacular names, the uses of Ravenala madagascariensis and the price of plant parts sold in local market. Then, the uses were categorized according to Cámara-Leret et al. classification.ResultsDifferent parts of the plant are currently used by local population, which are grouped as heart, trunk, leaves, petioles and rachis. Seven categories of use were recorded, most cited include: human food, utensils and tools, and house building. The most commonly used parts are trunk, heart, leaves and petioles for which the price varies between $3-15. Uses mentioned for construction (floor, roofs and wall), human food and utensils and tools are the most frequent and salient for local population. But the use of the plant as first materials for house building is revealed to be the most important for them.ConclusionsRavenala madagascariensis is very important to the Ambalabe communities because for local population, it represents the Betsimisaraka cultural and traditional use of the plant for house building. Moreover, none of its parts are discarded. The harvest and sale of R. madagascariensis for building materials can also provide an additional source of income to the family. Besides, using Ravenala in house construction reduces the use of slow growing trees and contributes to the sustainable use of natural forest resources.