A Study on Medicinal Plants Used by Rural People of Dharmapuri District, Tamilnadu, India

A botanical survey was carried out among the various species of medicinal plants in Dharmapuri district, Tamilnadu, India. The rural folk and old aged people have long been using plants for their various ailments. Man has always made use of medicinal plants to cure sufferings and diseases. This review is not documented information of the various therapeutic applications of plants used in traditional medicine. However this information related to traditional medicinal uses of plants is not well documented. There is an urgent need for documenting these folklore and traditional knowledge in some form before such valuable knowledge becomes inaccessible and extinct. Traditional uses of selected plant species belonging to 40 families are described for their medicinal properties in the present study. The rural people use these plants to treat skin allergy, dysentery, for anti-bacterial activity, diabetes, jaundice, asthma, fertility, antifertility, dental diseases, etc. The medicinal plants used by them are arranged alphabetically followed by family name, local name and their medicinal uses.