Medicinal plants in Benin: An analysis of traditionally used Beninese plants indexed in the Prota Database

There are approximately 7000 useful plants that could play a vital role in food security, health care and income improvement for the 1.2 billion people living in sub-Saharan Africa. PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) is a unique project under which the available information on these useful African plants is collected, validated and made available in books and an interactive database. A systematic database search was performed in the Prota database to analyze the indigenous knowledge about herbs in Benin. The Boolean operators were utilized to link the search-terms and the entry field 'countries' was used to limit the search geographically. The results where then evaluated referring to species and families. 724 plant species were listed for medicinal usage in Benin. The dominant plant families were: Fabacaceae (138), Euphorbiaceae (114), Rubiaceae (66), Combretaceae (70) and Asteraceae (70). Species found most often were: Acacia (15), Ficus (14), Euphorbia (9) and Crotalaria (9). An analysis of diseases mainly treated with the plants indexed in the database was difficult and did not lead to clear results because many plants are used for various indications and in some cases the indication is unclear. Especially in Benin there was developed list of medicinal plants for the treatment of malaria including instruction for application. An herbal pharmacopeia providing an official list of medicinal plants for other indications is still lacking. Only few Beninese plants applied as herbs have been studied in in vitro experiments or in clinical trials. The use is based on traditional experiences. Further research referring to safety and efficacy as well as the identification of the active components within the herbs is necessary.