ETHNO-MEDICO-BOTANICAL STUDIES ON AQUATIC PLANTS IN RURAL AREAS OF CUDDALORE DISTRICT, TAMILNADU, INDIA

The present work was undertaken to explore the ethno-medico-botanical values of aquatic plants from rural areas of Cuddalore District in Tamilnadu, India. Traditional knowledge of 22aquatic plants was identified as medicinally important species from local residents, vaidya, other medicine men and from other sources. Collected information’s are arranged in an alphabetical order followed by the sequence of scientific name, family, vernacular name, prescription and usage. Documentation of traditional knowledge of ethnomedico-botanical values of aquatic plant species will provide baseline information for investigating new biodynamic compounds of potential therapeutic uses in future.


INTRODUCTION
The knowledge of medicinal property of plants has been accumulated in the course of many centuries (Kirthikar and Basu, 1980). The local inhabitants have inherited rich traditional knowledge on the use of many plants or plant parts for treatment of common diseases (Vedavathy, 2003;Jain, 2004;Maity, et al., 2004). The remedies based on these plants often have minimal side effects (Lambert et al., 1997). Recently there is a paradigm shift from over use synthetic drugs to herbal medicines. The medicinal value of a particular species of plant differs from one locality to another or from one community to another. Hence, it is highly imperative to document local knowledge on the medicinal properties of plants to gain wider and in-depth knowledge on their curative abilities. It play a significant role in the primary production, nutrient cycling, and serve as bioindicators for eutrophication processes (Thangam et al., 2010;Regini Balasingh, 2011) Hydrophytes grow profusely in lakes and waterways all over the world and have in recent decades their negative effects magnifies by man's intensive use of natural water bodies. Eradication of this water plants are has proved almost impossible and even reasonable control is difficult. The potential of aquatic plants as food and feed has been emphasized by several authors (Indirani, 2010;Lawrence, 2010). Large growths of hydrophytes in lakes and waterways of tropical countries, although a menace, represent a natural resource of green leaves (Lawrence, 2010). With increasing interest in finding new drugs, the wild or unutilized plants receive more attention which offers a good scope to meet the increasing demand for novel drug discovery.
Local people use a wide variety of wetland / wetland -associated plants as ingredients of traditional herbal medicinal preparations. Often the information on the composition of a specific medicinal preparation or the knowledge on the use and medical value of particular plant is restricted to a few members of a community or even to one or two individuals of a household. Since most of this vital system of knowledge is transmitted orally, the local extinction of a plant results in the gradual loss of knowledge related with the medicinal value of such species.

Documentation
of ethno-botanical importance of terrestrial plant species was more than aquatic plant species. Maya et al. (2003) analyzed the economic importance of river vegetation of Kerala and gave the uses of 35 species including the bank specie apart from the aquatic/wetland species. Panda and Misra (2011) provided information about ethno medicinal uses of 48 wetland plant species of South Orissa and discussed their conservation. Swapna et al. (2011) made a review on the medicinal and edible aspects of 70 aquatic and wetland plants of India. Though the aquatic situations of India are rich repositories of various plant species, not much work has been under taken to explore the medicinal uses of them.
Hence, the present study was carried out to document the ethnomedico-botanical values of aquatic plants in Cuddalore District of Tamilnadu, India.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The present study, the data collection and survey have been made by field visits during June 2012-April 2013 and focused mainly on the aquatic plant species used by different local vaidhyas and medicinemen in Cuddalore District (11.75°N 79.75°E) of Tamilnadu, India for primary healthcare needs as reported by the informants/traditional healers. The large number of local people, medicine men, herbal informants and women chieftains were personally interviewed and requested to answer a few questions about the (i) local aquatic plants and their availability in the area; (ii) application of these plants in healthcare and the data were recorded time to time. The collected information of ethno-medicobotanical values of aquatic plants was arranged according to their alphabetical sequence such as scientific name, families, voucher specimen number, family, vernacular names, parts used, the therapeutic uses and method of usage of herbal preparations.

Disease cured
Method of preparation and mode of administration The decoction of the young shoot is taken in 1.
(Amaranthaceae) Shoot Dysentery empty stomach twice a day.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
During the field survey, ethno medicinal data of 22aquatic plant species under 19 genera belonging to 17 families have been documented. Among the ethno-medico-botanical values of the species, the family Nymphaeaceae was most frequently represented with a total of 3 species, followed by Pontederiaceae, Amaranthaceae and Convolvulaceae having 2 species. Whole plants part and leaves are predominantly used when compare to other parts of plants. The data on the medicinally important plants indicate that the observed species were used to treat 37 ailments including fever, gynaecological complaints, stomach disorders, jaundice, snake bite, skin diseases, rheumatism, ulcer, wounds, boils, cuts and wounds, diseases of blood, and other diseases. (Table 1).
Local communities and vaidhyas in District living with the day to day practices and there are no written documents. Moreover, the existing knowledge on traditional uses of plants are destroying in fast pace, because the lack of interest of local youth to learn the traditional knowledge from the old herbal healer. It is also felt that the valuable and time-tested knowledge on the medicinal uses of plants are also is appearing due to modernization, acculturation, forests destruction, urbanization, industrialization, etc. Scientific investigations through the evaluation of these aquatic plants for their biological activity and isolation of active constituents responsible for their medicinal properties which will give a lead to develop new natural drug molecules so as to reach he benefit of research for the welfare of human beings.