Curative Climbers of Maruthamalai Hills in the Southern Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India.docVIP

Int. J. Med. Arom. Plants, ISSN 2249 – 4340 RESEARCH ARTICLE Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 326-332, December 2011 Curative Climbers of Maruthamalai Hills in the Southern Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India A. SARVALINGAM , A. RAJENDRAN *, V. ARAVINDHAN3 1 2 Department of Botany, School of Life Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore – 641 046, Tamil Nadu, India *Corresponding Author, Tel: +91-0422-2428307 Article History: Received 14 September 2011, Revised 19 December 2011, Accepted 20 December 2011. th th th Abstract: The present study was conducted in Maruthamalai Hills (426.72 m MSL), which is located in the Coimbatore district, Southern Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India to explore the diversity of climbers and their curativeness. The study is primarily based on field surveys conducted throughout the hills, where dwellers provided information on plant species used as medicine, plant parts used to prepare the remedies and ailments to which the remedies were prescribed. A total of 55- plant species belonging to 45- genera comprises 20- families of medicinally important climbers were identi- fied to be used by ethnic people to cure various ailments such as diabetes, dysentery, fever, headache, rheumatism, snakebite, cough, etc. It is evident from the study that, the ethnic people still values traditional medicines as a way of meeting their medical needs. This extensive knowledge among them can be tapped for bioprospecting, scientific scrutiny validation and utilization for posterity. Keywords: Ailments; Curative climbers; Maruthamalai hills; Southern Western Ghats; Traditional Knowledge. Introduction especially when other food sources are scarce (Sabatier 1985). Climbers are a typical constituent of rain fo- rests. The distribution and abundance of climb- ing plants in forest varies