Ethnomedicines used by Kaniyakaran tribes in Kaniyakumari district-Southern Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu , India

Article history: Received on: 07/11/2013 Revised on: 30/11/2013 Accepted on: 19/02/2014 Available online: 27/02/2014 A survey was carried out among the Kani tribals in Kaniyakumari districtSouthern Western Ghats, of Tamil Nadu, India. Traditional uses of 62 plant species belonging to 34 families are described under this study. In this communication, the informations got from the rural inhabitant were compared with the already existing literature. The medicinal plants were mostly used to cure asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, skin and sex related diseases. The medicinal plants used by people are arranged alphabetically followed by Botanical name, family, Voucher specimen number, Local name, Part used, mode of preparation.


INTRODUCTION
The art of herbal healing has very deep root in Indian culture and folklore.Medicinal plants have been playing an important role for the survival of the ethnic communities, who live in remote villages and forests.Traditional folk medicine, which is mostly undocumented, has been handed down orally from one generation to another.Large sections of the Indian population still rely on traditional herbal medicine (Dubey et al., 2004).Even today, most of the forest tribals are depending on local traditional healing systems for their primary health care.Their reliability on healing plants is still more for the people inhabitating the deep forest of Western Ghats in India, where it is difficult for them to get modern medical facilities for their day to day problems.Medicinal plants attracted considerable global interests in recent years.Due to various human activities such as deforestation and other developmental activities, both natural vegetation and traditional culture in India are fast declining.There is an urgent need to document all ethnobotanical knowledge available with different ethnic and folklore communities before their traditional .
. culture is completely lost.Ethnobotanical knowledge has been documented from various part of Indian sub-continent.(Das and Tag, 2006;Singh 2004).In Tamil Nadu state ethnomedical value of plants in possession of various tribals and rural communities for treating various diseases and disorders has been done to some extent (Anandan and Veluchamy, 1986;Viswanathan, 2004;Ignacimuthu et al., 2006).A perusal of these reports suggested that the ethnobotanical survey in Tamil Nadu is incomplete and traditional herbal healing knowledge of a large number of folk communities need documentation.For many decades, the tribal community has a traditionally self managed system of folk medicine and primary healthcare mainly based on herbal remedies.In kanniyakumari the kani tribals inhabited the villages of konjanr, kodayar, Kodithurai or Kani kudiiruppu, Keeripari, olakiaruvi, veerapuli and Mramalai, The knowledge about medicinal plants is rather specialized and is limited to a few members in the community who are recognized as 'Vaidhyar' (also known as medicine men, informant and traditional healer).Traditional healers commonly begin their training as children or teenagers working as assistants to their mothers, fathers and to other relatives who are recognized healers.After having trained for a number of years, the apprentice will be ceremonially granted the authority to use a given treatment.This individual will be recognized by others in their culture as having mystical power to heal, as well as having the power to train others in the use of medicinal plants.

METERIALS AND METHODS
A preliminary survey of kani tribal villages in Kanyakumari district revealed that local communities used herbal medicine for their healthcare extensively.Frequent field surveys were made in Kanyakumari district.Each area was visited twice in different seasons in 2012-2013.Ethnobotanical data (local names, part used, mode of preparation, medicinal uses) were collected through interviews and discussion with the tribal practitioners in and around the study area.Data were also collected through questionnaires in their local language ( Tamil).Informations were collected through interview with seven persons aged between 40-80, who had traditional knowledge of plants.In addition to the vernacular names, questions were also asked about each plant prescribed, such as part of the plant used, medical uses, detailed information about mode of preparation (i.e., decoction, paste, pills, powder and juice); from the usage either fresh or dried and mixtures of other plants used as ingredients were also collected.The claims were compared with available important works on Indian ethnobotany and medicinal plants such as Jain (1991); Kirtikar and Basu (2001);Nadkarni (1954).The medicinal plants were identified (local names), photographed and sample specimens were collected for the preparation of herbarium documentation.The Flora of Presidency of Madras (Gamble 1935) and The Flora of Tamil Nadu Carnatic (Matthew 1983) were used to ascertain the nomenclature.The voucher specimens were deposited in the herbarium at Department of Plant biology and Biotechnology, Gurunanak College Vellacheri, Chennai,

RESULT
Kanyakumari district Wild life forest has a variety of medicinal plants which are used by Kani tribes for their primary health care.The present study identified tribal healers using 62 species of ethnomedicinal plants distributed in 56 genera belonging to 34 families to treat various diseases.The result of the survey presented in table-1, in which the plants are arranged alphabetically by botanical names for each species.The following ethnobotanical information were provided; Botanical names, Family name, Voucher specimen numbers, Local names, Part used, mode of preparation , route of administration, ethnomedicinal uses and major chemical constituents according to the informations collected.The mostly used plant parts among the tribals are fruit and leaves followed by seeds, root, bark, whole plant, flowers, stem, rhizome, bulb and gum.These are commonly occurring and medicinally important plants used to treat various diseases like asthma, skin diseases, sex related problems, rheumatism, hepatitis, diabetic, piles, ulcers, poisonous bites and wound healing etc,.This is consistent with other general observations which have been reported earlier in relation to medicinal plants studies by the Indian system of medicines like Siddha, Ayurvedha and Unani (Kirtikar and Basu 1999., Anonymous, 1997., Asolkar et al 1992).Different types of preparation made from medicinally important plants include decoction, juice, powder, paste, oil and plant extract.Drugs are prescribed either single or in a combination of more than one plant / parts of same or different plants to the people suffering from various diseases.In Kanyakumari district, the local herbal healers and elder people rich in traditional knowledge depend on the natural resources of the area.Most of them still consider traditional herbal knowledge as traditional secrets.But, through repeated contacts, and discussions, they shared their traditional herbal knowledge.Medicinal plants play an important role in providing knowledge to the researchers in the field of ethno botany and ethnopharmacology.The observation of present study shows that traditional medicine plays a significant role in the life of tribal people.are forcing people to depend on the locally available herbal medicine for their health care needs.

CONCLUSION
The present study revealed that traditional medicines are still in common use by the Kani tribal communities in the area explored.Thus study ascertains the value of a great number of plants used in tribal medicine for various diseases which could be of considerable interest in the development of new drugs.The collected data show that majority of the medicines are taken orally and most of the reported preparations are obtained from a single plant; Mixtures are used rarely in other parts of the country and the use of mixtures of the plant species in treating particular ailments is fairly common in this area.Generally, the people of the study area still have strong belief in the efficacy and success of herbal medicine.The results of the present study provide evidence that medicinal plants continue to play an important role in the health care system of Kani tribal community.Finally to conclude, this research article will attract the attention of ethnobotanist, phytochemist and pharmacologist for their critical investigation of medicinal plants present in the region of Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, India.
There is no previous report in the records of ethnobotanical knowledge from Kaniyakaran tribes of Kaniyakumari district forest of Tamil Nadu.An attempt has therefore been made to collect and document the folk knowledge from tribals, local herbal healers and knowledgeable elder people of different castes and communities residing in certain forest area of Kaniyakumari wildlife forest.Western Ghats of Kaniyakumati district, Tamil Nadu.The district lies between 77 o 15 ' and 77 o 36 ' of the eastern longitudes and 8 o 03 ' and 8 o 35 ' of the northern latitudes.The District is bound by Tirunelveli District on the North and East, by South East Gulf of Mannar by South and the South West the boundaries are the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea by West and North West is bounded by

Table . 1
: Ethnomedical plants, Local name, Mode of preparation and used in Kaniyakumari Wild life forest, Tamil Nadu, India.