Ethnobotanical and Traditional Knowledge on Psammophytic Plants: Southeast Indian Coastal Area

Alphonse, Mariadoss; Adhikari, Santosh; Tharsius Raja, William Raja; Nallakaruppan, Nagaraj; Veluchamy, Chandra; Sekaran, Manoj; Andandaraj, Parthipanraja; Nachiappan, Kanagam; Navapara, Rahda; Doshi, Richa; Sabade, Nidhi; Perumal, Anantharaman; Thiagarajan, Kalaivani; Chandrasekaran, Rajasekaran

doi:10.21608/ejbo.2023.130140.1947

Ethnobotanical and Traditional Knowledge on Psammophytic Plants: Southeast Indian Coastal Area

Document Type : Regular issue (Original Article)

Authors

¹ Department of Biotechnology, School of Bio Sciences and Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore – 632014, TamilNadu, India

² Division of Ethnopharmacology, Entomology Research Institute, Loyola College, Chennai – 600034, Tamil Nadu, India

³ P.G..and Research Department of Biotechnology, Bishop Heber College (Autonomous), Tiruchirapalli – 620017, Tamilnadu, India

⁴ Department of Biotechnology, Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Sriperumbudur – 602117, TamilNadu, India

⁵ Centre for Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Sciences, Annamalai University, Parangipettai - 608 502, Tamil Nadu, India

10.21608/ejbo.2023.130140.1947

Abstract

The Southeast Indian (SEI) coastal area is rich in unique wild plant life. These coastal plants have various medicinal properties that the local inhabitants traditionally use. No study has reported the documentation of medicinal plants in the entire SEI coastal region. In this study, we report the complete medicinal plants found along the SEI coastal regions and the traditional ethnobotanical knowledge (TEK) inventory of fishermen’s communities. Field study documented a total of 111 medicinal plant species, which belong to 49 families in the 46 fixed study sites along with the SEI and established herbaria. The highest species count was recorded from the Fabaceae family and the least from Amaranthaceae, Rhizophoraceae, and Apocynaceae family. Among the collected plants, 43% were herbs, followed by 33% trees, 15% shrubs, 6% climbers and 3% creepers. On surveying the fisherman community's traditional ethnobotanical knowledge (TEK), it was observed that among the total number of informants, 57 % were above the age group of 60 yrs, followed by 28% and 15% of middle and younger age groups, respectively. This study will provide basic knowledge about the medicinal plant resources of SEI and TEK of fishermen’s community to initiate the future-oriented conservation strategies

Keywords