International Journal of Biology Research 22 International Journal of Biology Research ISSN: 2455-6548, Impact Factor: RJIF 5.22 www.biologyjournal.in Volume 2; Issue 1; January 2017; Page No. 22-26 Ethnomedicinal plants survey in Elanji Hill village Sathyamangalam range of reserve forest, Western Ghats Tamil Nadu India * P Vijayashalini, N Anjanadevi, P Abirami, M Sharmila PG and Research Department of Botany, Vellalar College for Women, Thindal, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India Abstract An ethno medicinal plants survey was carried out in Elanji hill village, Sathyamangalam range of reserve forest, Erode district, Tamil Nadu, India. Plants are the significant source of therapeutic drugs. It plays important role in human’s survival. In In dia above 3000 plants for their medicinal value, is generally estimated that over 6000 plants in India are in use in traditional, folk and herbal medicine, representing about 75% of the medicinal needs of the Third World countries. The present study investigated that 104 plants belonging to 42 families. In these families leguminosae held the dominant position. Keywords: Elanji hill, medicinal plants, traditional uses 1. Introduction Medicinal plants are played an important role, to treating a various diseases throughout the world. India possesses almost 8% of the estimated biodiversity of the world with around 1,26,000 species. This is because of its varied geographical and climatic conditions. A vast knowledge of how to use the plants against different illness may be expected to have accumulated in areas of where the use of the plant is still of great importance. The plants used in ethnomedicine contain a wide range of substances that can be used to treat chronic as well infectious diseases. Ethnomedicinal practices are preferred largely because medicinal plants are less expensive, readily available and reliable and they are considered to have fewer side effects than modern medicines. Medicinal plants are the wealthy bio-resources of drugs of traditional medicinal systems, modern medicines, nutraceuticals, food supplements and folk medicines, pharmaceuticals, intermediate and chemical entitled for synthetic drugs (Abraham, 1981) [9] . 2. Materials and Methods 2.1 Study Area Ealanji is a small villages located in Sathyamangalam R.F. is located in the North East of Erode District in Tami Nadu and the hill is about 130 km away from Erode. The latitude is N 11 0 C 38.99 1 0 . The longitude is E 077 0 15.654 0 and the altitude is 817 meter above MSL. The temperature of the hill is around 25 0 C in the winter and in summer it is 33 0 C, the annual rainfall of this hill ranges between 10 mm and 90 mm. The vegetation is about Dry Deciduous type and scrub at the foot hill. The people of the Ealanji hill and the surrounding areas are Hoorali, Lingayats, Ambadi Naicker, Okulikavudar, Thoraiyar and Solagars. Hoorali and Lingayats are ethnic people inhabiting the hill around 300 years. Nearly 800 peoples are living in this hill. The main occupation of this people are agricultural and cattle rearing. The predominant plants are Lantana camara, Crotalaria pallida, Artocarpus integrifolia, Artocarpus incisa, Cassia auriculata, Pterolobium indicum, Acacia latronum, Jatropha curcas, Santalum album, Acacia sundra, Cassia tora and Atalantia monophylla. During the survey period, adopting the method of Jain (1967) [6] , the qualitative tools such as conversations and open discussions with the informants, the local traditional healers and elders of the area having practical knowledge of plants in medicine either for self-medication or for others were held. A total of 4 informants comprising 3 males and 1 female were identified between the ages of 50 and 75.These informants were approached and requested to share their knowledge about the plants they use against different diseases and plants harvested. The gathered information such as local plant name, parts used, medicinal uses and nature of administration was systematized and analysed to draw a clear and updated picture of the medicinal plants use pattern of hill. At the same time efforts were made to compare and discuss the use of medicinal plant species recorded with those reported by others. The information collected and examined by consulting important works pertaining to Indian medicinal plants (Chopra et al., 1956; Kirtikar and Basu, 1975; Jain, 1991 and Sivaranjan and Balachandran, 2006) [7, 20, 5, 21, 8] . 2.2 Collection and Identification of Medicinal Plants The plants were collected during their flowering period. Voucher specimens usually one twig due to conservation and preservation of biodiversity of all medicinally valuable plants were collected, poisoned, dried and mounted with voucher number following the conventional methods (Jain and Rao, 1977) [4, 10] and deposited at the department of Botany Herbarium, Vellalar College for Women, Erode, Tamil Nadu. Photographs of few plants were also taken to supplement the herbarium. Identification was done by using Flora of the Presidency of Madras, Gamble and Fischer (1915-1936) [11] and The Flora of the Tamil Nadu Carnatic, Matthew (1981, 1982, 1983, 1988 and 1991) [12, 13, 14, 15, 16] . Flora of Tamil Nadu Series (Nair and Henry, 1983; Henry et al., 1987 & Henry et al., 1989) [17, 19, 18] was used at best for nomenclature. The plants were enumerated following the Natural system of