A report of the threatened
plant Decalepis hamiltoniiWight & Arn. (Asclepiadaceae) from the mid
elevation forests of Pachamalai Hills of the Eastern
Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India
V. Anburaja1, V. Nandagopalan 2, S. Prakash 3 & A. Lakshmi Prabha4
1,2 PG and
Research Department of Botany, National College, Tiruchirappalli,
Tamil Nadu 620001, India
3 Post
Doctoral Scholar, VOLCANI Centre, Israel
4 Department
of Plant Science, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu 620024, India
Email: 1vanburaja@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 veenan05@gmail.com, 3vpsham@hotmail.com, 4 dralprabha@yahoo.com
Date of publication (online): 26
December 2012
Date of publication (print): 26
December 2012
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893
(print)
Editor: N.P. Balakrishnan
Manuscript details:
Ms # o3053
Received 04 January 2012
Final received 14 May 2012
Finally accepted 28 September 2012
Citation: Anburaja, V., V. Nandagopalan,
S. Prakash & A.L. Prabha(2012). A report
of the threatened plant Decalepis hamiltonii Wight & Arn.(Asclepiadaceae) from the mid
elevation forests of Pachamalai Hills of the Eastern
Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. Journal of Threatened
Taxa 4(15): 3447–3449.
Copyright: © V. Anburaja, V. Nandagopalan,
S. Prakash & A. Lakshmi Prabha2012. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 UnportedLicense. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this
article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by
providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.
Acknowledgements: We thank the Secretary and Correspondent Thiru.
K. Raghunathan and the Principal Dr. K. Anbarasu, National College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli for providing facilities during this
research work. We also thank Dr. S. Soosai Raj,
Assistant Professor, St. Josephs College, Trichirappallifor helping me in plant identification. We are grateful to R. Rajan, and other officials of Botanical Survey of India,
Regional Office, Southern Circle, Coimbatore for
allowing me to refer the literatures. We thank Dravia Dass (Late) for helping me in the field collection.
Our thanks to M. Sivakumar and other local people of
the Pachamalai to help me in the field
work.
The Eastern Ghats are a series of discontinuous low hill ranges running
generally northeast-southwest, parallel to the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The Eastern Ghats have a rich floristic
diversity; more than 2500 species of angiosperms occur in this region, which
constitutes about 13% of the flowering plants of India (Nair & Henry 1983; Saxena & Brahmam 1994; Pullaiah 1997; Pullaiah & Alimoulali 1997; Pullaiah & Chennaiah 1997). The Eastern Ghats is rich in medicinal and aromatic plant resources and
indigenous livelihood traditions, therefore under the
framework of proper policy and guidelines, these resources can be more
effectively used to benefit local people.
The loss of biodiversity due
to the introduction of exotics is damaging native biodiversity. The habitat destruction and conversion
by shifting cultivation, rapid industrialization and excessive exploitation of
raw materials are some of the reasons for the disappearance of many plants and
animals. Apart from these,
developmental projects like dam constructions and settlements around have
submerged a considerable part of the forests. Forest fires, cattle grazing and mining
in the area are also responsible for the biodiversity decline.
The PachamalaiHills are a part of the Eastern Ghats situated in the central region of Tamil
Nadu, India (11009’–11027’N & 78028’–78049’E;
Image 1). They occupy an area of
about 527.61km2 and a range of 160–1072 m. The vegetated area is distributed into
35 reserved forests. The Pachamalai Hills enjoy a subtropical climate with
temperatures varying from 25–31 0C and annual rainfall ranging
from 800–900 mm. It supports
many types of vegetation and of these the dry evergreen forests have been
considered significant due to their dense cover, besides their distinct
composition. Evergreen forests are
relatively common in the Western Ghats of peninsular India; however, dry
evergreen forests are meagre in distribution and are
confined to higher elevations of the Eastern Ghats that are discontinuous and
in small patches. The presence of
such vegetation is an indication that the lower elevation hills like the Eastern
Ghats can harbour good vegetation and are the
vestiges of a luxuriant vegetation cover of the past
era and hence need to be protected (Soosairaj et al.
2007). The hills are most
significant socio-culturally, as the most diversified forest patches are found
here. These hills have been studied
earlier mainly for floristic analysis (Matthew 1983).
However, while working on the
floral biodiversity of mid elevation forests of PachamalaiHills, we collected Decalepis hamiltonii Wight & Arn. in the Gangavalli Hills, a part ofPachamalai at an altitude of 500–550 m. The plant D. hamiltoniiwas found as a single population in riparian vegetation of the study area
(Image 2). Before this, D. hamiltonii had not been reported from Pachamalai (Matthew 1983).
D. hamiltonii belongs to the family Asclepiadaceae. The habit of the plant is a liana. It is a globally endangered species (Raju & Ramana 2009). D. hamiltonii is one of the four species in the
genus Decalepis. It is endemic to peninsular India and is
known by various names like “Maredu Kommulu, Nannari kommulu and Madina Kommulu” in Telugu, “Makali ber” in Kannada and “Magali kizhangu” in Tamil. The plant root is used in ayurvedic medicines
and in pickles.
Regeneration is severely
affected since most of the plants are harvested prior to seed setting. Roots, leaves and follicles have
medicinal properties. Roots are
pickled and marketed on a large scale. This plant is also used as a substitute for the real Nannariplant Hemidesmus indicus (L) R. Br. Roots are harvested in hundreds of tonnesfrom Biligiri RangaswamyTemple Hills for pickling and medicinal purposes. The Conservator of Forests of Vellore
and Salem circle stated that around 100 tonnes of
roots are auctioned every year. Girijan Co-operative Society, Andhra Pradesh traded 351.6 tonnes of roots from April 1997 to January 1998.
The tribal community of the Pachamalai Hills utilizes D. hamiltonii as ethnomedicine. It is taken orally to rejuvenate the
body and is a popular health tonic. Ancient tribes in the Western Ghats of India have also used the roots ofD. hamiltonii for several medicinal purposes
particularly as an anti-inflammatory (Ashalatha et
al. 2010). The root contains
antioxidants.
Vegetative and reproductive characters: Branchlets teretewith swollen, winged nodes. Leaves
ovate, subcoriaceous, longitudinally folded, base
attenuate, margin entire, apex subacute; petiolate. Cymes
axillary peduncled trichotomouscymes; bracts and bracteoles lanceolate; flowers pedicellate. Calyx - lobes oblong, tinged with brown, chartaceous, valvate, acute. Corolla cream, campanulate; lobes
spreading, valvate, villous inside, acute. Stamens connivent; pollinia horizontal; pollinial bags closely adherent, flat; caudicleindistinct; receptacle minute. Corona double with 10 scales; outer scales truncate;
inner flat, adhering to gynostegium. Glands 5 at the base of corolla, alternating with stamens, 2-fid. Ovaries subglobose; style present; stigma obtuse. Follicle
oblong - lanceolate, cylindric;epicarp thick, crinkled; seeds ovate; testa angled, chartaceous, tipped with long, white, silky coma.
Phenology: Flowering: May–July. Fruiting: January–March.
Distribution: The species is endemic to peninsular India. It is has been recorded in the dry and
moist deciduous forests of Karnataka (Hassan, Mysore, Bellary, Tumkur, Kolar), Andhra Pradesh
(Kurnool, Chittoor, Nellore, Anantapur,Cuddapah districts) and Tamil Nadu (Chengalpattu,
Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Nilgiri)
References
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