AN ETHNO-PHYTOCHEMICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL REVIEW ON SOME UNEXPLORED MEDICINAL PLANTS BELONGS TO NORTH-EAST AND SOUTH-EAST REGION OF CHATTISHGARH

Santosh Kumar Vaidya*, S. B. Bothra

ABSTRACT

The forests of Chhattisgarh are a large store house of varieties of Medicinal and Aromatic plants and they sustain the lives of large population of forest dependent rural communities through addressing their food, health and livelihood issues. The forests of the state fall under two major forest types, i.e., Tropical Moist Deciduous forest and the Tropical Dry Deciduous forest. The state of Chhattisgarh is endowed with about 22 varied forest sub-types existing in the state. Total forest area of the state is 59,772 Sq. Km. Out of which, the reserved forest is 25782 Sq. Km. (43.13 %), protected forest is 24036 Sq. Km. (40.22 %) and unclassified forest is 9954 Sq. Km (16.65 %).Medicinal plants of Chhattisgarh state belong to 911 genera and 196 families. These include 14 taxa at subspecies level. The total number of medicinal plant species (taxa) stand at 1525 comprising of climbers (161), herbs (808), shrubs (262) and trees (294).The present review is focus on some unexplored medicinal plants belongs to north-east and south-east region of Chhattisgarh to provide information’s on the phytochemicals, ethno medicinal uses and pharmacological activities of plants (Alangium salviifolium, Athyrium falcatum, Ipomea reniformis, Tamarix aphylla and Thespesia lampas) commonly used in Indian traditional medicine. These plants are known to contain various active principles of therapeutic value and to possess biological activity against a number of diseases.

Keywords: Tropical, phytochemical and therapeutic value.