Ethnobotanical Medicines Used by the Kani and Kurichiyar Tribal Communities of Kerala

Abstract

The nature endowed with hidden resources of biodiversity comprises of various flora and fauna. The indigenous knowledge about the ethnobotanicals is vital for the conservation of traditional medicine as well as for future research. The documentation of indigenous medicine through botanical studies is also one of the aspects of the conservation and utilization of biodiversity. Kerala has many diverse ethnic tribal communities, and they are still following the traditional system of healing with the help of various biological resources. Each tribal communities have different lifestyles, and they are distributed in the various parts of Kerala. The tribals possess a traditional knowledge of uses of medicinal plants and employ different plants for curing diseases and infections. But, this valuable information is not documented properly. The tribal communities, along with their knowledge, have been diminishing due to the vanishing of forests as well as rapid modernization. But, the proper documentation and utilization of indigenous knowledge of tribes about the diverse medicinal plants will be useful for the development of novel drugs. Hence, we have attempted for the documentation of valuable tribal knowledge on medicinal plants, which would potentially serve as a useful reference for future researches. This article provides the list of plants used by the selected primitive tribal group of Kerala such as Kani, and Kurichiyar to treat various diseases.