Identification of Commonly Used Medicinal Plants in African Tribes
In Africa, medicinal herbs were primarily used to treat different illnesses in the community prior to European colonization. Today, there are still traditional healing methods that are being used by many tribes in Africa and researchers have been trying to classify those commonly used herbs. However, the herbs that are traded in the local markets or distributed by practitioners are often processed and appear as small pieces from the original plants. I have a strong passion for medicinal plants which led me on a trip to Kenya, Africa to obtain herbal samples that treat specific ailments. The samples that I found did not have a scientific name and instead had a name that reflected a tribal language. The scientific names in English of the plants were not being used and there was a gap in knowledge for individuals like me who want to identify the specific plants that are being used as medicine. This gap in knowledge is what I hope to bridge by identifying the scientific name of the bark samples and confirming the health diseases that these samples treat.