The etnomedicinal aspects of plants used as spices and condiments found plant species to have varying therapeutic application communities. Their uses in ethnomedicine include acting as stimulants, antiseptic carminatives, expectorants, laxatives, purgatives, anticonvulsant, antihelmintic, and sedatives to the treatment of diarrhoea, malaria, rheumatism, asthma, catarrh and bronchitis. The botanical name of the plants and its common names, parts used, ailment cured and method of its preparation and treatments. Indeed, spices have been extensively used for flavouring and seasoning foods, beverages and medicines. But apart from the use of these plants as spices and condiments, they have several other wide applications in the treatment and management of many diseases. The value of the plants are more for their ethnomedicinal uses than for spicing foods. For instance, ginger is more valued for its treatment of coughs, asthma, colds and hypertension than as condiment. The use of preparations of Xylopia aethiopica, Piper guineense, Piper nigrum and Murraya Koenigii in post-partum treatment and restorative soup after child birth is certainly of more value than as a mere seasoning or flavouring agent.

The trade and commercial utilisation of the plants, though informal, constitute dominant enterprise of the spices. Top on the list is Pepper fruit botanically called Denniettia tripetala and belongs to the plant family Annonaceae. The leaves, fruits and seeds are chewed for cough and enhancing appetite. Another Fruits justifies the use of D. tripetala fruits as food and a drug in herbal medicine. The "Mineral and nutritive value of Dennettia tripetala fruits" showed that D. tripetala contained crude protein {15.31 per cent}, total carbohydrate {62 per cent}, crude fibres {9.84 per cent}, crude lipids {3.47 per cent} and moisture {8.0 per cent}. It has a calorific value of 480.24 g cal 100 g-1 of fresh fruit, and mineral content comprised: calcium {1.80 per cent}, phosphorus {0.33 per cent}, potassium {2.50 per cent} and magnesium {0.42 per cent}. Trace elements included iron, copper, zinc and cadmium, but chromium was not detected. The water-soluble vitamins include ascorbic acid, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin.

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