Documentation of medicinal plants of The Sudan
By: Prof. Gamal E.B. El Ghazali
Studies on the medicinal plants of The Sudan confirmed that The Sudan has a huge wealth of fauna and flora coupled with rich folkloric uses.
The Sudan folkloric medicine represents a unique blend of indigenous cultures with East and West African, Arabian, Egyptian and Indian cultures. As a result, The Sudan harbours a high diversity of medicine plants that will continue to play an important role in the health system.
Documentation of medicinal plants in The Sudan started early in the 19th century by “Welcome Tropical Research Laboratories Reports (1906-1911)”, followed by “Welcome Chemical Laboratories Reports (1964-1960)” and Broun & Massey (1929) working with the flora of The Sudan. Since then, great efforts were done to document the wealth of the country in the field of medicinal plants in a systematic way to cover all parts of The Sudan.
“Atlas of Medicinal Plants of The Sudan”, is a project fostered by Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research Institute, National Center for Research, Khartoum, Sudan. It is a long-term project proposed in 1972 with the establishment of the “Medicinal and Aromatic Herbs Research Unit, Medical Research Council, National Council for Research”. The project was designed to document primary information on the medicinal plants and their folkloric uses in the different Regions/States of The Sudan. Medicinal plants of each Region/ State will be published in a separate part. In the last phase of the project, all published parts will encompass the “Atlas of Medicinal Plants of The Sudan”.
It was planned that this Atlas will follow recent scientific approaches in applying updated botanical names; habit and habitat of each plant, and also includes local/ vernacular names and line illustrations to attract a wide array of users.
In over fifty years, wide areas of the country were surveyed and eight parts of the Atlas have been already published covering Erkowit, Eastern Nuba Mountains, White Nile, Northern Kordofan, Ingassana, Red Sea State, River Nile State and Northern State.
At present, medicinal plants of Gezira State are understudy and it is hoped that further surveys will follow to cover all parts of The Sudan.