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2.2 Ethnobotanical uses
A comprehensive review was done by Lukhoba et al. (2006), which contains
ethnomedicinal information of a variety of Plectranthus species between 1934 and 2005.
This is summarised in tables 1 and 2 with additional information added for published
work between 2006 and 2010.
Table 1 is an inventory of Plectranthus species that are used by traditional healers to help
alleviate and/or heal skin, digestive, respiratory, muscular-skeletal and genito-urinary
conditions as well as infections, fever and pain, while table 2 contains an inventory of
species used to treat heart, circulatory and blood disorders, ailments affecting the sensory
and nervous system, treatment of poisonous substances in the body, inflammation and
medical conditions which could not be assigned to any of the other categories, labelled as
‘unspecific’.
A total of twenty-one Plectranthus species are used for digestive conditions, nineteen
used for skin conditions and sixteen and fifteen species respectively used for respiratory
conditions and infections and fever (Table 1). This in itself is evidence of the genus’
widespread use ethnomedicinally.
The conditions listed in table 2 are not treated by as many species as are those listed in
table 1 with the highest being eight species used for nervous conditions, followed by six
species to treat sensory conditions, five species for heart, circulatory and blood disorders
and four species each for treatment against poisons and inflammation.
Plectranthus barbatus and Plectranthus amboinicus have proven to be the most widely
used species, being used in all of the medical conditions listed in Tables 1 and 2 with
Plectranthus laxiflorus being used in all conditions in table 1 and three of the categories
as reflected in Table 2.
It must be noted that digestive conditions as categorised by Lukhoba et al. (2006) contain
nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea and that “pain” can be associated with a number of
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