Int. J. Med. Arom. Plants, ISSN 2249 – 4340 SHORT COMMUNICATION Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 162-165, September 2011 *Corresponding author: (E-mail) hiremath2047@gmail.com http://www.openaccessscience.com ©2011 Open Access Science Research Publisher ijmap@openaccessscience.com Phytotherapy associated with Jaundice in Chitradurga District, Karnataka V.T. HIREMATH 1* , T.C. TARANATH 2 1 Department of Botany, HPPC Govt. First Grade College, Challakere, Chitradurga district, Karna- taka State 2 PG Department of Studies in Botany, Karnatak University, Dharwad-580 003 Article History: Received 15 th September 2011, Revised 29 th September 2011, Accepted 30 th September 2011. Abstract: India has one of world’s richest medicinal plant heritages. The wealth is not only in terms of the number of unique species documented, but also in terms of the tremendous depth of traditional knowledge for the uses of human & livestock health and also for agriculture. The medicinal plant species are used by various ethnic communities for human and veterinary health care, across the various ecosystems from Ladakh in the trans-Himalayas to the southern coastal tip of Kanyakumari and from the deserts of Rajasthan and kachch to the hills of the Northeast. Chitradurga, is the central district of Karnataka state with much racial and socio-cultural diversity. Beda’s, Besthas, Gollas, lambanis, are the tribes who are intimately associated with the local forests and traditional knowledge. Local traditional healers having practical knowledge of medicinal plants either for self-medication or for treating others often visit the surrounding forests to col- lect plant species. The present survey was conducted to collect information about plants used to treat Jaundice in different villages of Challakere taluk of Chitradurga district. Based on personal interviews in normal discussion and observation using questionnaire during study visits, ethno botanical data viz., local name, mode of preparation, medicinal uses were collected. The traditional health healers used 28 plant species, under 24 genera and 20 families to treat Jaundice. The survey also revealed that among the different plant parts used, whole plant is frequently used in 8 species, followed by root (6 species), stem (4), leaves (3 species), flower (2 species) and bark (1 species). The investigation concluded that, there is an urgent need to assess the medicinal plant diversity and conserve the traditional knowledge by proper docu- mentation. Keywords: Bedas; Gollas; Hakki-Pikki; Jaundice; Ethno medicine. Introduction India has one of world’s richest medicinal plant heritages. The wealth is not only in terms of the number of unique species documented, but also in terms of the tremendous depth of tra- ditional knowledge for the uses of human & li- vestock health and also for agriculture. The me- dicinal plant species are used by various ethnic communities for human and veterinary health care, across the various ecosystems from La- dakh in the trans-Himalayas to the southern coastal tip of Kanyakumari and from the deserts of Rajasthan and kachch to the hills of the Northeast. Plants have been used in traditional medicine for thousands of years (Abu-Rabia 2005). The knowledge of medicinal plants has been accu- mulated in the course of many centuries based on different medicinal systems such as Ayurve- da, Unani and Siddha. In India it is reported that traditional healers use 2500 plant species and 100 species of plants serve as regular sources of medicine (Pei 2001). Medicinal plants are the basic health care of rural households form the resource base for rapidly growing pharmaceuti- cal industry and cosmetic. The ancient civiliza- tion including China, Egypt and Indus valley revealed the utilization of medicinal plants by them (Kirtikar and Basu 1935). In recent years, there has been a tremendous range of interest in the medicinal plants especially those used in traditional systems of medicines. Drugs ob- tained from plant are believed to be much safer