ETHNOMEDICINAL APPROACHES FOR TREATING VARIOUS DISEASE BY IRULAS TRIBALS, KONBANUR VILLAGE, ANAIKATTI HILLS,THE WESTERN GHATS, COIMBATORE DISTRICT

Indigenous traditional Knowledge is an integral part of the culture and history of a local community. It evolves through years of regular experimentation on the day to day life and available resources surrounded by the community. The present paper documented 85 ethno-medicinal plants of Konbanur village, Anaikatti, Coimbatore district, the Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu belonging to 48 families were used by the Irula tribals for various diseases and food. The conventional ethno medicinal plants were mostly used for different inflammation, cough and cold, leucoderma, different skin diseases, ulcers and leprosy. The ethnomedicinal plants are arranged alphabetically followed by botanical name, family, local name and medicinal uses.


INTRODUCTION
India is endowed with a variety of natural resources. All along the West coast the Western Ghats are sprawling. The entire Western Ghats is known for its biodiversity, richness and endemism of different species. India harbours about 15% (3000 -3500) out of 20,000 medicinal plants of the world. About 90% of these are found growing wild in different climatic regions of the country (Singh, 1997). The tribal and rural populations of India are, to a large extent, dependent on medicinal plants not only to meet their own healthcare needs by selfmedication, but also for their livestock. The Western Ghats is richly credited with varied kind of vegetation and unimaginable topographical features. There are about 2,000 plant species that has been found to possess the medicinal value, in all the four systems of indigenous medicine, viz., Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy (Hemambara et al., 1996). Irulas are a small tribal community that is part of the Dravidian language group that is spoken in South-Eastern India. They are recognized as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) by the Government of India (Sasi et al., 2011;Ragupathy and Newmaster, 2009). The Irulas are the Dravidian inhabitants and one among the 36 sub-tribal communities in Tamil Nadu that holds the population about 26,000 Irulas living in Tamil Nadu, out of the total population of 558 lakh in the state (Department of Tribal Welfare of Tamil Nadu, Statistic table, July 2006), which is less than 0.5 % of the entire state's population (Census of India, 1991 and. The study area Konbanur village,Anaikatti (11°6'N,76°45'E). is occupied 250 acres site constitutes a part of the large two square kilometers catchment area. Two hill slopes, northern and southern, also form a part of NBR park. The hills elevate to a height of 80 to 120 meter from the valleys.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The present work is the outcome of intensive field studies undertaken in hamlet inhabited by Irulas community. Explorative field trips were regularly made once in a month of the study area to all habitants to elicit information on medicinal plant used to treat various ailments. Folklore medico botanical investigations were carried out according to the method adopted by Schultes (1960Schultes ( , 1962; Jain (1989) and Martin (1995). Fieldwork is the most significant aspect in this type of study. Extensive field trips were conducted to remote rural settlements. From each village, two or three local herbal healers were interviewed to elicit first hand information in respect of the plant/plant product curing various diseases. The voucher specimen plants collected were identified with the help of Flora of Presidency of Madras by Gamble (1936) and Flora of Tamilnadu and Carnatic by Mathew (1983).
The medicinal plants collected in this way are tabulated. All the collected medicinal plants were arranged their family and genus according to the alphabetical order. The botanical names followed by author citation and synonyms of the plant species, local name of the plant species were also provided. Most of the plants are used as a medicine rest of them served as edible plants.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The present study was carried out in the Konbanur village of Anaikatti hills, the Western Ghats, Coimbatore District. Fieldwork is the most significant aspect in this type of study. Extensive field trips were conducted to remote rural settlements. From each village, two or three local herbal healers were interviewed to elicit first hand information in respect of the plant/plant product curing various diseases. In Table 1, data obtained from the field survey are presented. In this study 85 plant species belonging to 48 families have been recorded. Many plant species belonging to families of Solanaceae, Asteraceae and Amarandhaceae are frequently used. The informations collected from this study are in agreement with the previous reports (Pushpangadan andAtal, 1984, Kala, 2005;Jain, 2001;Ayyanar and Ignacimuthu, 2005;Sandhya et al., 2006;Ignacimuthu et al., 2006). For common ailments such as fevers, stomach ache and respiratory disorders, skin diseases, joint pains, hair loss, dysentery, diarrhea, snakebite, jaundice and malaria more number of medication were used. On the other hand, few were used to complicated problems such as heart diseases, kidney disorders skin diseases, cancer and diabetes. The knowledge informants were taken to the field and information on medicinal plants was recorded. The informants were asked to explain therapies of the diseases and to list plants they employ (Table 3-4).In this investigation, there are 20species belonging to 17 families and 18 Genera were reported by the local practice for the treatment of common heart diseases ( Table 2). Among them, 17 families represents atleast single species each. Nearly 20 species, they are using for the treatment of common stomach problems which belonging into 12 families and 20 Genera ( Table 3) and The Irula communities of the study area selectively used around 15 families with their 19 plant species especially for the treatment of kidney disorders which is belonging into (Table 4) Amarandhaceae, Asclepiadaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Lamiaceae, Fabaceae, Malvaceae, Menispermaceae and Nyctaginaceae etc. For each plant species complete documentation of folklore medicinal information including medicinal property, their vernacular names, family, parts of used, uses and their identified phytochemical compounds was recorded (Coehran and Cornfield, 1951;Martin, 1995). The most important aspect of the Irula tribal medicine is that fresh plant material is used for the preparation of medicine. Alternatively, if the fresh plant parts are not available, dried plant materials are used. For this reason several plants served as edible food and alternative remedy to cure a more than single diseases. From this study it is clear that Irula tribal possess innate ability to discern the character of plants and exploit the plant resources to meet their health care needs.

CONCLUSION
In the present investigation, a total of 85 species of medicinal plants distributed among 80 genera belonging to 48 families were identified at Konbanur village, Anaikatti hills, the Western Ghats, Coimbatore district. In this survey Amarandaceae, Asteraceae and Solanaceae family species served as a food and Asclepiadaceae, Combretaceae, Rhamnaceae and Liliaceae, Euphorbiaceae and etc., families are utilized for various ailments. It is clearly indicates that there is wide usage of local flora by the Irulars community in study area.
This rural area is an important source of traditional medicines. More information may be explored from the peoples residing in the remote villages in this district. The traditional healers are the main source of knowledge on medicinal plants. This knowledge has been transmitted orally from generation to generation; however it seems that it is vanishing from the modern society since younger people are not interested to carry on this tradition. It is also observed that some traditional plants in that area are fast eroding. The conservation efforts are needed by plantation and protection of these plants with maximum participation of local people.