Abstract
Home garden can serve as an important source of both food and cash income for vulnerable households. The objectives of this study were to documenting the flora of the home gardens, obtaining their frequency and to categorize the plants into medicinal/other economically important species according to their utility value in 10 different residential areas of Coimbatore city. The home garden surveys revealed that totally 90 species, were enlisted in the sampled areas and of them the higher species richness of 26 were found in Vadavalli residential area. Overall 47 families were recorded, among them Acanthaceae and Apocyanaceae were more dominant families in the study sites. In the species content 72 were recognized as medicinally important and 18 as ornamental. It was further known that the residents of middle class earned sizeable income through vegetables in addition to fulfilling their day to day need while the residents of upper class highly preferring ornamental species. Few species like Saraca indica, the endemics are well protected by cultivation in homegardens. Thus the present study presumes that home gardens satisfy various household needs and conserve medicinally valuable species.
Highlights
Home gardens are species-rich agroforestry systems maintained on the basis of choice, needs and importance of plants
The sizes of the home gardens sampled were varied much between ca. 25m2 and 225m2. In this range most of the home gardens were within the global inventory range of other tropical home gardens (Fernandez and Nair, 1986)
The number of species and their numerical strength were not in accordance with the size of the home gardens studied in Coimbatore city
Summary
Home gardens are species-rich agroforestry systems maintained on the basis of choice, needs and importance of plants. It is a traditional land use practice around a homestead where several plant species are maintained by members of the house hold and their products are intended to be an economically consumption (Shrestha et al, 2001). Compared to other agricultural or horticultural ecosystems, home gardens are having rich species content and well suited for ex situ conservation of many rare/endangered species, besides fruit and timber trees. The industrial areas, educational institutions and residential areas are maintaining home gardens almost in all parts of the city
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