Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

MEDICINAL PLANTS OF MAHE - A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

K. Sasikala and G. Pradeep Kumar

Abstract

Medicinal plants are valuable living resources and are exhaustible if over used, but sustainable if used with care and knowledge. The medicinal plants that have been used traditionally as well as traded commercially continue to be harvested from the wild. Due to the continuous exploitation, the medicinal plant wealth is depleting day by day. Proper investigation and documentation of medicinal plant wealth has become essential to compile data on medicinal plant diversity and for adopting proper conservative measures. Mahe, coming under Puducherry administration forms a part of Western Ghats. It comprises an area of 9 sq. km. and occupies a unique position near the Arabian Sea. Over a period of time this unique ecosystem has been experiencing ecological stress of various sorts such as habitat destruction and developmental activities. This is reflected in the quality of natural resources. In order to develop a database on the medicinal plant diversity of Mahe, a survey has been carried out. The present paper embodies the result of the preliminary survey of medicinal plants of Mahe, which yielded 60 medicinal plant species belonging to 37 families.