Due to modernization and urbanization, traditional medicinal herbs and their associated knoweldge are under peril of being lost. The current study not only aimed to document the trend of herbal medicinal plant uitlization in District Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, but also raised alarming concerns about the conservation of these medicinal herbs and traditional knowledge linked to them. The data were collected from local people, herbalists, and gardeners by using standard ethnobotanical methods, i.e., questionnaires and interviews. Results reported that a lower number of informants possessed medicinal herb knowledge and reported only 50 medicinal herbs from the study area. This is probably due to the impact of speedy industrilaization and alterations in human life patterns in the study area. Not only the traditional knowledge is under threat but also the medicinal herbs themselves. Most of the reported medicinal herbs were rare (45.10%), while only few (9.80%) were ranked as abundant in the study area. The herbs with more medicinal importance are mostly rare. This is because of their over usage by the local people. Both conservation approaches (in situ and ex situ conservation and cultivation practices) and resource management (good agricultural practices and sustainable use solutions) should be adequately taken into account for the sustainable use of medicinal plant resources.

Salvadora faces a significant threat of being in decline in semi‐arid regions. This study investigates the distribution status of Salvadora species in semi‐arid habitats, moreover examines how habitat types, climatic conditions and soil variability influence plant's functional traits and distribution. The study was organized in the semi‐arid lowlands of the Sahiwal Division, Pakistan. Field surveys were conducted from 2021 to 2023 across 51 sites comprised of four types of habitats, i.e., archaeological sites, graveyards, roadsides, and railway lines. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) were applied to examine the impact of habitat types and environmental variables on Salvadora distribution. Two species of Salvadora, i.e., Salvadora persica Linn and Salvadora oleoides Decne, were identified taxonomically in the study area. S. persica was found to be more abundant than S. oleoides. These results recommend that S. persica was more dominant in most sites except for Sahiwal, where both species had similar densities. The number of tree trunks, tree height, and leaf size, leaf biomass are some of the dominant traits that were influenced by habitat variability. Other factors like temperature, precipitation, th soil's pH and moisture levels play important roles in species distribution within these habitats. Despite Salvadora notable economic and ecological importance, its ecological situation is critical because of overexploitation, climate change, and habitat destruction. To ensure that Salvadora continues to exist and perform its ecological functions in its natural habitat, protecting and managing strategies need to be planned and enforced.