Urban ethnobotany of Kolkata, India: a case study of sustainability, conservation and pluricultural use of medicinal plants in traditional herbal shops

Kolkata, due to its rich cultural heritage, displays a mixture of Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani and Chinese medicines in its pharmacopoeia. An ethnopharmacological survey was conducted throughout the 144 wards in Kolkata from October 2019 to February 2020 to record the Ethnomedicinal practices and plants used for therapeutic purposes by local herbal medicinal shops and practitioners, the majority of which were situated in North and Central Kolkata. A total of 53 medicinal plant species belonging to 36 different families were reported, with Azadirachta indica, Withania somnifera, Glycyrrhiza glabra and Aloe vera being the most popular species and Ocimum sanctum as the most prevalent home garden species. The most important or useful family was Ranunculaceae. The majority of plants were used against urban lifestyle diseases like hypertension, hypoglycaemia, constipation and urinary diseases. The home gardens served as tools for ex situ conservation for these species. Most of the species’ conservation status was least concern, depicting that the local practitioners know sustainable use of the plants and posed zero threats to the natural populations and urban ecological systems. The study was performed to analyse the persistence and flow of traditional herbal knowledge in an advanced city and a comparison of the species used was done via several indices so that the impact of this practice on both local habitats and conservation of the medicinal plant species can be inferred.