Ethnobotanical study of ethnoveterinary plants in Kelem Wollega Zone , Oromia Region , Ethiopia

Questionnaire based cross sectional study design was conducted from November 2015 to April 2016 in Dale Sadi district area, Kellem Wollega Zone of Oromia regional state of Ethiopia, to identify potential medicinal plants used for treatment of the livestock ailments. In this study 50 species of medicinal plant species were identified which were categorized under 32 different families. Among the medicinal plants 45(90%) were used for curative purpose, 2(4%) for only prophylactic purpose and 3(6%) for both curative and prophylactic activities. Shrubs 29(58%), herbs 10(20%) and tree 8(16%) were the main habitat of the herbal plants. The main routes of administration were oral and topical, 30(60%) and 9(18%) respectively. Leaves 18(36%) and roots 7(14%) were the main parts of the plant used as medicinal values. The results of this study play a significant role in encouraging further investigations by extracting and identifying bioactive constituents of those herbal medicines for the antimicrobial effect. It is recommended that further detailed examination should be conducted to investigate the medical principles and pharmaceutical activity found in these plants.


INTRODUCTION
Medicinal plants have served through ages as a constant source of medicament for treatment of a variety of diseases (Okoli et al., 2007).The history of herbal medicine is almost as old as human civilization (Choudhary et al., 2015).In ancient cultures people developed their own herbal pharmacopoeias based on information gained through experience and in our today's scientific pharmacopoeia much of the information on scientific medicine is derived from those herbal pharmacopoeias (Kim, 2005).Medicinal plants play a key role in the development and advancement of modern studies by serving as a starting point for the development of novelties in drug (Wright, 2005).Tropical plants have been used for medicinal purposes since the evolution of man.This knowledge is still alive and several hundred species are used in herbal remedies in indigenous system of medicines, where the whole plant or plant part or its extraction is used (Alawa et al., 2002;Okoli et al., *Corresponding author.E-mail: moamelaku@yahoo.com. Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License 2002; Ogbuewu et al., 2015).Medicinal plants are the "backbone" of traditional medicine, which means more than 3.3 billion people in the less developed countries utilize medicinal plants on a regular basis (Davidson-Hunt, 2000).Primitive people learned by trial and error to distinguish useful plants with beneficial effects from those that were toxic or non-active and also which combinations or processing methods had to be used to gain consistent and optimal results (Jagessar et al., 2008).
In comparison with modern medicine, herbal medicines cost less, are more often used to treat chronic diseases and the occurrence of undesirable side effects seems to be less frequent (Jagessar et al., 2007).Natural products have long been regarded as excellent sources for drug discovery, given their structural diversity and a wide variety of biological activities (Fu et al., 2008).Due to easy availability and low cost of ethno veterinary medicinal plants, the livestock owners of the remote areas use them as a first aid for their animals (Jabbar et al., 2006).
Ethno veterinary knowledge is acquired by communities over many years and passed between generations through oral tradition.Today, with rapid cultural changes, this knowledge is being lost, necessitating its scientific documentation (Mathias, 2001).Thus, saving the species, documenting and preserving indigenous knowledge is essential (Alam and Ali, 2010).There is a lack of ethno botanical survey carried out in most parts of the country.In view of these, documentation of the traditional use of medicinal plants is important to preserve the knowledge regarding the traditional plants.Once these local ethno medical preparations are scientifically evaluated and disseminated properly, people will be better informed regarding efficacious drug treatment and improved health status.Therefore, this study was attempted with objectives: 1. To identify and document potential medicinal plants for the livestock ailment treatments at the study area.2. To investigate the scientific name of those medicinal plants used by the local traditional healers.

Study area and study population
The study was conducted from November 2015 to April 2016 on some traditional medicinal plants found in Dale Sadi district.Dale Sadi is one of the districts in Kellem Wollega zone of Oromia Regional state.It is 510 km far from Addis Ababa capital city of Ethiopia.The area lies at average altitude of 1150 m above sea level.The area has temperature range of 33 of 35°C with more agricultural crops.The climatic condition alternates with long summer May to August and short rainy seasons from March to April.The winter dry seasons (November to February) with mean annual rain fall of 1200 mm (DDBOA, 2013).The target populations for this study were voluntary livestock's owners such as farmers, traditional healers and veterinarian.

Study design and sampling methods
Cross sectional study design was conducted to identify traditional plants used in animals disease healing.Primary data were collected by questionnaire survey from purposively selected elders, especially traditional healer's livelihoods which depend predominantly on traditional plants for curing their livestock and their own health.At the same time voluntary animal owners, animal health practitioners were interviewed using focus group discussions and field observation.Non-probability sampling method was carried out to collect information related to medicinal plants for livestock in the study area.All volunteer traditional healers selected based on recommendation from elders of the study area.

Study methodology
The structured questionnaire was used to collect information related to medicinal plants used to treat livestock and Information regarding local name of the plant, its habit, part(s) of plants used, route of administration, methods of preparation, local name of the animal diseases treated, dosage used and species of animals treated was recorded at spot.Based on ethno botanical information acquired from informants, the plants were collected from the surrounding forests and other parts of the study areas with the people who know the local name of the plants.Pictures (Figure 1) of voucher specimens were captured and their leaves were collected, pressed and dried to identify the scientific names of the collected medicinal plants at the National Herbarium of Biology Department of Natural Science Faculty, Wollega University, Ethiopia.

Data analysis and management
The information that was gathered through questionnaire survey was coded and entered in to Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.Descriptive statics and chi-square were employed by SPSS version 20 software for analyzing of ethno botanical data.

RESULTS
The total numbers of species of plants collected during the study period were fifty (50).These were categorized under 32 different types of families.From the total 32 families of the plant-samples, 6(12%) plant species belong to family Asteraceae and 4(8%) plant species belong to family Solanaceae.Those family including Zygophyllaceae Fabaceae, Rosaceae, Musaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Moraceae, Rutaceae, Malvaceae, Brassicaceae and Cucurbitaceae each contains 2(4%) species of plants.Each of the remaining twenty (20) families was represented by single species of plants (Table 1).
The identified traditional medicinal plants were used traditionally to cure livestock ailments by local communities.It was found that the medicinal plants were used as anti-bacterial, anti-parasitic, anti-viral.At the same time those medicinal plants could be used for haemostatic, retention of fetal membrane, suturing the

Routes and dosage of the administered medicinal plants
Numerous techniques of administrations routes were employed during administering the remedies.The highest numbers of medicinal plants were given orally 30(60%), followed by topical application 9(18%) (Table 7).According to study area much of recorded medicinal plants were found not to be toxic to animals even given at higher doses, except some plants like Euphorbia Ampliphylla, Zehneriascabra, Capparistomentosa, Capsicum annuum and Eulophia that were reported to be toxic at higher concentration (Table 7).

Parts of plant used as medicinal values and their growth form
The plants part used to treat animal disease varied from species to species and from diseases to diseases.Leaf, seed, bark, root, sap and latex were widely used for treating animal disease.Leaf 18(36%) were the most frequently used plant parts followed by root 7(14%) and seed 4(8%) and the minimum used part was pod (2%) (Table 8).

DISCUSSION
Medicinal plants play a key role in the development and advancement of modern studies by serving as a starting point for the development of novelties in drug.Herbal medicine has been widely formulated and used as an integral part of primary health care in Nigeria, China, Ethiopia and Argentina (Ogbuewu et al., 2015).
Among the plant families, Asteraceae was the dominant medicinal plant (12%) followed by family Solanaceae (8%).This finding was in line with Getaneh et al. (2014), in which Asteraceae was found to be the most dominant (11.2%) and Solanaceae was the second dominant (7.4%).This result is different with the finding of Zewdu et al. (2015), in which Euphorbiaceae was  Citrus aurantifolia is a traditional medicinal plants also identified in this study which have insecticidal property against lice infestation.Similar result was reported by Parle and Chaturvedi (2012), who indicated that orange peel oil produces lethal effect on fleas, fire ants, and houseflies due to its 90 to 95% limonene.Other than using as insecticides, it was reported that the juice of C. aurantifolia is considered as tonic for libido and as antidote for poison and the diluted form of the C. aurantifolia fruit juice is used for mouth wash to treat sore mouth, sore throat and useful to treat irritation, diarrhea and swelling due to mosquito bites (Aibinu et al., 2007;Khare., 2007;Akhtar., 2013).Similar to the reports of Firaol et al. (2013), Euphorbia ampliphylla plant was found to have the ability to cure the wart by topical application.
At the study area, Phytolacca dodecandra have medicinal values for internal parasites, abdominal aches and washing of the wound.However, the study results of Abebe et al. (2003) indicated that P. dodecandra used as taenicidal and molluscicidal activity and other study conducted in Hadya Zone, Ethiopia also revealed that this plant's root was useful for treating Anthrax and itchiness (Habtamu et al., 2014).
In this study finding the Gossypium herbaceum plant have medicinal values for treating of ocular problem.In contrast to this Dhamija et al. (2011) reported that aqueous extract of G. herbaceum showed significant antidepressant like effect due to activation of adenyl cyclase In this study, the whole parts of Bersama abyssinica were identified having the ability to treat internal parasites.This is in agreement with  Abebe et al. (2000).However it was reported that H. abyssinica also used against tapeworms in humans in Ethiopia (Giday et al., 2003, Yayesh et al., 2015).According to local herbalists Zingiber officinale have medicinal values for treating any internal parasites.This is similar with the finding of Iqbal et al. (2006), who investigated the anthelmintic activity of crude powder and crude aqueous extract of dried Zinger (1 to 3 g/kg) in sheep naturally infected with mixed species of gastrointestinal nematodes.Contrary to this finding specific aspects of Zinger's actions has been practiced for centuries in Chinese, Ayurvedic and Tibb-Unani fields of study as herbal medicines for the treatment of catarrh, rheumatism, nervous diseases, gingivitis, tooth ache, asthma, stroke, constipation and diabetes (Wang and Wang, 2005;Tapsell et al., 2006).On the other hand (Grzanna et al., 2005) indicated the anti-inflammatory action of ginger, while Shukla and Singh (2007) dealt with the cancer prevention properties of the Zinger crude drug.
Echinops is a well-known medicinal plant which is used for treating abdominal ache, dry cough and circling diseases.Similarly Hymete et al. (2007) reported that the root of Echinops is chewed and used to alleviate stomach ache.The anti-microbial activities of medicinal plants are varying; this is in agreement with (Yusha'u et al., 2008) who reported that antibacterial activity may vary from one plant to another.Generally herbal medicines collected during the study were found to have medicinal values in health care of livestock for treatment of multiple ailments.This was also reported in different countries (Deeba et al., 2009;Shinwari, 2010).

Conclusion
The results of the present study show presence of wide range of herbal medicine used for treating

Table 1 .
Lists of plant's family frequently used by traditional healers in the study area.

Table 2 .
Summary of general characteristics of the identified medicinal plants under family Asteraceae's family.

Table 3 .
Summary of general characteristics of the identified medicinal plants under family Solanaceae.

local name Scientific lame plant types Part used Adm. Route Method of preparation Indication Animal's species
Yusha'u et al. (2008)8)transduction system and hence protecting the neurons from the lesion andNarasimha et al. (2008)also emphasized that G. herbaceum seeds to have antioxidant activity, anti-diarrheic, wound healing, anti-migraine, and diuretic activity.In addition, the Allium cepa is another type of traditional medicinal plants useful for treating Foot and mouth viral diseases.This result is different from the finding ofYusha'u et al. (2008), in which A. cepa is used in treatment of common ailments like cold, allergies, toothaches, laryngitis and cough.

Table 4 .
Summary of general characteristics of the identified medicinal plants under families of Zygophyllaceae, Fabaceae, Rosaceae, Musaceae, Euphorbiaceae Justicia schimperiana have medicinal values for prevention rabies.The result was in line with other finding of Abiyu et al. (2014) that was conducted on Ethnobotanical study of traditional medicinal plants in and around Fiche District, Ethiopia.Anthelmintics use of H. abyssinica in ruminants has been in agreement with the finding of

Table 5 .
Summary of general characteristics of the identified medicinal plants under families of Moraceae, Rutaceae, Malvaceae, Brassicaceae, Cuccurbitaceae.

Table 6 .
Summary of general characteristics of the remaining identified medicinal plants.