Conservation and sustainable use of the medicinal Leguminosae plants from Angola

Abstract

Leguminosae is an economically important family that contains a large number of medicinal plants, many of which are widely used in African traditional medicine. Angola holds a great socio-cultural diversity and is one of the richest floristic regions of the world, with over 900 native Leguminosae species. This study is the first to assess the medicinal uses of the legumes in Angola and provides new data to promote the conservation and the sustainable use of these unique resources. We document the ethnobotanical knowledge on Angola by reviewing the most important herbarium collections and literature, complemented by recent field surveys. Our results revealed that 127 native legume species have medicinal uses and 65% of them have other important uses by local populations. The species with most medicinal applications areErythrina abyssinica, Bauhinia thonningiiandPterocarpus angolensis. The rich flora found in Angola suggests an enormous potential for discovery of new drugs with therapeutic value. However, the overexploitation and the indiscriminate collection of legumes for multiple uses such as forage, food, timber and medical uses, increases the threats upon the native vegetation. Efforts to assess the conservation status of these species are urgently needed, and future actions should promote the sustainable use of medicinal plants in Angola together with the implementation of conservation strategies.

Chemical Composition and Antibacterial Activity of Lippia multiflora Moldenke Essential Oil from Different Regions of Angola

“…It shares its borders with Congo in the north and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the south with Namibia [ 46 ]. The country has more than 32 million population and is divided into eighteen provinces with a wide range of ecosystems and habitats [ 47 ]. Indeed, Angola lies between and within two major terrestrial biogeographic regions: the moist forests and savannas of the Congolian region; and the woodlands, savannas, and floodplains of the Zambian territories [ 48 ].…”

Crops Diversification and the Role of Orphan Legumes to Improve the Sub-Saharan Africa Farming Systems

“…However, they play a significant role in many developing countries, providing food security and nutrition to consumers, as well as income to resourcepoor farmers. Being legumes, these plants have the advantage of fixing atmospheric nitrogen for their own needs and for soil enrichment, thereby reducing the cost of fertilizer inputs in crop farming [11].…”

Legacy of the scientific collections of the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, University of Lisbon: a critical review and outlook

“…this traditional knowledge represents an important cultural heritage and conveys relevant information about the potential of tropical floras. in this regard, research developed in the iiCt has made recently available comprehensive ethnobotanical datasets for different african countries, including angola [29], Guinea-Bissau [30] and mozambique [31]. Furthermore, several studies were published based on the unique collections housed in CiFC (e.g., coffee leaf rust pathogen collections) [32] or in the response of Coffea species to cold impact and acclimation [33], which have contributed collectively to raise the quality and impact of the iiCt's excellence at all levels of research.…”