# Exploration of the Medicinal Flora of the Aljumum Region in Saudi Arabia
## 4 Discussion  
Saudi Arabia represents a large portion of the Arabian Peninsula, as mentioned earlier, and it is considered a large country with dynamic geographies and variable habitats. Generally, it is very rich in its biodiversity of wild plants (flora) at the level of genera, such as Acacia, Aerva, and Caralluma, or at the family level, such as Fabaceae, Poaceae, and Brassicaceae [30]. Recently, many species have been recorded among the flora of Saudi Arabia, and the number of species is increasing day by day based on new field trips and biodiversity surveys [21; 29]. Initially, the number of documented species was around 1500 species, as recorded by [PERSON] between 1974-1988 [39]. After 25 years, the number was increased to approximately 2300 based on many scientific publications concerning the flora of Saudi Arabia [38; 61; 62]. This indicates the importance of conducting more surveys in different and broad habitats in Saudi Arabia to discover the biological diversity and new species, especially medicinal plants [63; 64]. This study focused on a specific region of Saudi Arabia, namely, the Aljumum Governor, which is located northwest of Makkah. It has a wide area of land that was once known for agriculture due to the soil's fertility and its numerous valleys [65]. The results showed 90 species from this limited area, which contains 6.44% of the species from the total flora of Saudi Arabia. This study can be considered the first study concerning the flora of Aljumum, although some studies have recorded many plant species in the Aljumum area for various research purposes [22; 66; 67]. The most prevalent families recorded in this study were Fabaceae and Poaceae, which are families with a typical distribution in most ecosystems in the Makkah region according to some studies that were interested in the flora of the western region of Saudi Arabia [68; 69; 70; 71]. The findings of the current study have shown that the locations of C (Osfan), D (Al-Fawara), and E (Wadi Al-Rayan and Ayen-Shams) were the most diverse in general terms of biodiversity assessments. This result is consistent with the studies of [21; 72], which suggests that this diversity is a result of variable topography among these locations and the abundance of valleys and their influence on the soils. The current study also provides a preliminary survey of the medicinal plants in the region as it is known that traditional herbal medicine currently plays an important role as a subject of scientific research, especially when the literature and field work data are properly evaluated. These evaluation results could introduce several plants that could be prioritized in the study of specific biological activity in folk medicine [73]. Additionally, many chemical compounds can be extracted from these plants and used in the pharmaceutical industries [74; 75]. These families included the most-used species in traditional medicine, such as Verbenaceae, Urticaceae, and Zygophyllaceae [76]. Recent years have seen an increase in scientific study on traditional plant medicine, particularly when the literature and fieldwork data are carefully analyzed. These evaluation findings can assist in prioritizing various plants for future research for their unique biological activity based on their traditional herbal applications and geographic distribution [73]. In this study, ethnomedial information was collected from 82 medicinal plants belonging to 34 families in the Aljumum region. The dominant plant families with a higher number of plant species were Fabaceae (32.35%), Poaceae (20.58%), and Asteraceae and Brassicaceae (17.64%). The use of these species may be preferred because of their ready availability. These are the most widely used medicinal plants in these families according to [77]. Some medicinal plants species (_Acacia arabica_, _Cassia italica_, _Senna italica_, _Sorghum bicolor_, _Echinops viscosus_, _Sonchus oleracus_, _and Sisymbrium irio_) among these families are widespread species in local folk medicine.