RESEARCH Open Access Ethnomedicinal uses of Hagenia abyssinica (Bruce) J.F. Gmel. among rural communities of Ethiopia Biruktayet Assefa 1* , Gerhard Glatzel 1 , Christine Buchmann 2 Abstract Ethiopian communities highly depend on local plant resources to secure their subsistence and health. Local tree resources are exploited and used intensively for medicinal purposes. This study provides insight into the medicinal importance of Hagenia abyssinica as well as the degree of threat on its population. An ethnobotanical study was carried out to document medicinal uses of Hagenia abyssinica by rural communities of North and Southeastern Ethiopia. The study was conducted using an integrated approach of group discussions, observation, a local market survey and interviews. A total of 90 people were interviewed among whom elderly and traditional healers were the key informants. Societies in the study sites still depend on Hagenia abyssinica for medicine. All plant parts are used to treat different aliments. Tree identification, collection and utilization were different among the studied communities. In spite of its significance, interest in utilizing flowers of Hagenia abyssinica as an anthelmintic seems to be diminishing, notably among young people. This is partly because the medicine can be harmful when it is taken in large quantities. Nowadays, the widely used Hagenia abyssinica is endangered primarily due to various anthropogenic impacts. This in turn may become a threat for the associated knowledge. It is recommended to assist communities in documenting their traditional knowledge. Measures for conserving species are urgently needed. Introduction Plants have played a vital role in the prevention and treatment of disease since prehistoric times. People in different parts of the world depend on plant resources for their basic needs and are aware of many useful spe- cies occurring in their ecosystem. They have continu- ously developed their knowledge of traditional plant uses and plant resource management [1-4]. Traditional knowledge is described as ‘a cumulative body of knowl- edge, practice and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural trans- mission, about the relationship of living beings (includ- ing humans) with one another and with their environment’ [2]. In many countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America people depend on traditional knowledge and medicinal plants to meet some of their primary health care needs. For instance in Africa up to 80% of the population use traditional medicine for primary health care [5]. Likewise, many Ethiopian communities are dependent on local plant resources for medicine. Ethiopia is endowed with diverse biological resources due to significant geographical diversity, which favored the formation of different habitat and vegetation zones. Ethiopia is also home to a diverse mix of ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups. This diverse combination of social and cultural backgrounds contributed much to the exis- tence of rich indigenous knowledge, including managing and using medicinal plants against human and livestock ailments. Plants have been used as a source of medicine in Ethiopia for a long time. More than 80% of the Ethio- pian people are dependent on plants for their health ser- vice [6]. More than 95% of traditional medical preparations in the country are of plant origin [7]. Med- icinal plants and knowledge of their uses provide a vital contribution to human and livestock health care needs. The importance of medicinal plants to treat human and * Correspondence: bickyjoe@yahoo.com 1 University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, Institute of Forest Ecology, Peter Jordan-Strasse 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Assefa et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2010, 6:20 http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/6/1/20 JOURNAL OF ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOMEDICINE © 2010 Assefa et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.