An ethnomedicinal research of medicinal plants used against gastrointestinal complaints by “Kaili Ledo ethnic” in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

The research aimed to conserve the ethnomedicinal knowledge of Kaili Ledo ethnic in using plants for healing gastrointestinal complaints and to select candidate medicinal plants for further phytochemical and pharmacological investigation. The research site was located in Raranggonau, an oldest subvillage of Kailinese Ledo The indigenous knowledge data of medicinal plants has been collected by using an in-depth interview with prior informed consent using an open-ended questionnaire. A snowball technique was performed to obtain appropriate respondents. A descriptive statistical method was employed to analyse and summarize the ethnobotanical data on the reported medicinal plants and associated knowledge. The result showed that there were 25 species belonging to 16 families were found to be used against gastrointestinal complaints in the studied area. The most dominant family used against gastrointestinal complaints was Lamiaceae (3 species), followed by Poaceae, Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Asteraceae (2 species each). Solanaceae, Asparaginaceae, Araucariaceae, Rosaceae, Rubiaceae, Musaceae, Melastomataceae, Caricaceae, Basellaceae and Balsaminaceae (1 each).