Article Information

¹Sathishkumar and ²Anbarasu

¹&²  PG & Research Department of Botany, NGM College of Arts and Science, Pollachi, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

^*Corresponding Author: Anbarasu, PG & Research Department of Botany, NGM College of Arts and Science, Pollachi, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Received: 24^th Feb-2019; Revised: 25^th Mar-2019; Accepted: 26^th Mar-2019

Copyright: ©2019 Anbarasu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Citation: Sathishkumar and Anbarasu. Ethnnomedicinal Plants of Gopalswamy Hills, Western Ghats, Coimbatore District, Tamilnadu. International Journal of Plant, Animal and Environmental Sciences 9 (2019): 6-12.

Abstract

Keywords

Medicinal plants, Gopalswamy hills, Western Ghats

Article Details

INTRODUCTION

Medicinal plants are extensively used throughout the world to cure human diseases since from ancient period. In India about 47,000 plant species are distributed in different vegetation zones [1]. This is ranking eighth in the world biodiversity. Out of these plants about 8,000 species are known to be medicinal importance. Around 2,500 plant species are used in the Indian Systems of Medicine such as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy [2]. In India about 90% of plant materials are collected from wild sources, many of the plants have become rare, threatened, endangered or vulnerable due to the destructive harvesting [3]. In India about 427 ethnic communities and folk healers use around 8,000 species of medicinal plants are used by many tribal communities for traditional medicinal preparation. India is endowed with rich wealth of medicinal plants which are widely used by all section of peoples either directly as folk remedies or different indigenous system of medicine or indirectly in the pharmaceutical preparations of modern medicines [4]. The growing demand of the herbal products in the domestic and global market also makes the use of ecosystem specific medicinal plants a livelihood strategy. At present India is experiencing great pressure on its, resources due to its fast growing population [5]. During the past two decades the human activities on commercialization of plant based drugs and demand from the pharmaceutical industry for domestic needs and the export of herbal drugs leads scarcity of medicinal plants in forests and plains. The utility and need of botanical exploration in the country is to identify and search the economically important medicinal plant which has to be propagated and conserved for future generation [6].
 

MATREIALS AND METHODS

Study area

Gopalswamy hills is situated close to the Anaimalai hills 10° 13’ and 10° 31’ north Latitude and between 76° 52’ and 77° 22’ east longitude of the Western Ghats part of the Southern forest division in the Coimbatore district of the state of Tamil Nadu. It is marked in the buffer zone of Anamalai Tiger Reserve. This countryside hillock supports rich flora comprising of medicinal plants. The Gopalswamy hills have a semi-arid climate with dry and cold winter and hot and dry summer. A semi-arid climate prevails with a maximum temperature ranging between
 

23  to 31 and a minimum temperature ranging 12 to 18. The tribal groups living here is Pulayars, they are the untouchable caste in Hinduism forming one of the main social groups in modern-day and they are living in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
 

Interviews with tribal practitioners

Ethnomedicinal plant informations were gathered from questionnaire survey method. The present data is outcome of field research carried out as part of ethnobotanical studies during 2016. The ethnomedicinal information was gathered from tribes who practice and have experience in the use of medicinal plants. Our questionnaire allowed descriptive responses on the plant prescribed, such as part of the plant used, medicinal uses, detailed information about mode of preparation (i.e.. decoction, paste, powder and juice), form of usage either fresh or dried and mixtures of other plants used as ingredients. Specimens were identified with the help of the Floras [7, 8].
 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This study result showed a total of 100 species belonging to 42 families and 92 genera of plants were record as highly useful medicines for local tribal people to cure the various diseases in Gopalswamy hills (Table 1). Among the plants 38 plants were shrubs, 32 species were herbs, 15 tree species and 15 species were climbers. Shrubs and herbs (70%) were found to be the dominant medicinal plants in Gopalswamy hills (Fig.1). A total of 42 families and 91 genera of plants were record as in Gopalswamy hills. Rubiaceae, Poaceae (9 species in each) were found to be dominant plant families followed by Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae (6 species in each) and Acanthaceae, Malvaceae (5species in each).
 

Fig. 1 Different types of plant parts used by Pulaiyar tribes for medicines
 

Among the ethnomedicinal plants 16 plants were used to cure skin disease followed by 12 species used to cure fever, 9 species used to cure diarrhea, 7 species used to cure diabetes, 6 species used to cure snake bite, four species used to cure Cough and one species used to cure Cancer.
 

Two endemic plants Arundinella mesophylla, Cymbopogan travancorensis (Peninsular India) and four threatened plants Cinnamomum wightii, Canthium dicoccum, Santalum album and Dalbergia latifolia were recorded in our study site [9] Leaves (41%) were highly preferred by local people as medicines for several diseases followed by whole plant parts (32%), barks (10%), roots (8%), fruits (5%), seeds (2%), stem (1%) and petiole (1%). Similarly leaves of fourteen plant species were highly used by local people for medicinal purpose in the Southern Western Ghats of Coimbatore district [6].
 

CONCLUSION

The present investigation is first report from Gopalswamy hills, Western Ghats region in Coimbatore district to quantify the medicinal plants used by tribal people. The results of our exploration showed that, traditional use of plants to treat various diseases in an area is based on the knowledge of tribal people reside in those regions and diversity of medicinal plants. Many endemic and threatened plants also used as medicine in our study area these plants needs to conserve at any cost. The present study demonstrated that, traditional herbal remedies which are in current use by informants of study area need further attention on dissemination of this knowledge to next generation.
 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank District forest officer, Pollachi for his support and permission to carry out this work in the field. We sincerely express our thanks to Dr. P.M. Palanisamy, Principal, NGM College, Pollachi for his encouragement during the work. Our heartfelt thanks to my colleagues Dr. Neelamathi (PG Botany, Head of the Department), Dr. Sathishkumar and Dr. Raakkimuthu for their valuable suggestions and support during the field work. We express our gratitude towards Dr. Kannan (UG Botany, Head of the Department) for his immense and useful guidance for this study.
 

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