Hidden Medicines in Herbarium Collections: Medicinal Plant Diversity and Ethnopharmacological Knowledge from Gombe State University Herbarium, Nigeria

Herbarium collections can provide underutilized sources of taxonomically anchored information relevant to ethnobotanical research. This study examined medicinal-use information associated with specimens in the Gombe State University Herbarium (GSUH), Nigeria, to characterize the taxonomic diversity, reported therapeutic applications, and plant parts documented in medicinal use records. We analysed 1,576 specimen records representing 768 plant species in 94 families. GSUH records documented medicinal uses for 475 species, generating 1,426 medicinal-use records. Fabaceae accounted for the largest proportion of medicinal species (15.8%), followed by Asteraceae (9.3%), Malvaceae (4.8%), and Lamiaceae (4.4%). The most frequently represented therapeutic categories were infections and sexually transmitted diseases (50.7%), gastrointestinal disorders (41.9%), pain, inflammation, and rheumatism (41.9%), fever and malaria (40.2%), and skin diseases and wounds (40.0%). Species were associated with a mean of 2.98 reported therapeutic categories, ranging from one to seven. Plant parts were significantly associated with therapeutic categories (χ² = 294.93, df = 150, P  < 0.001; Cramér’s V = 0.112). These findings describe patterns in traditional and herbarium-associated medicinal-use information rather than demonstrating therapeutic efficacy. The study illustrates how regional herbaria can support the organization of documented medicinal plant uses and contribute to research on ethnobotanical knowledge, biodiversity collections, and conservation.