Campus-Wide Floristic Diversity of Medicinal Plants in Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), Chennai

• DOI: 10.4236/ajps.2017.812203
• Publication Date: 2017-11-10T04:36:27Z
• Authors: Arumugam Nagarajan; Saravanan Soorang...; Kavitha Thangavel; Boobalan Thulasin...; Jothi Basu Muthur...; Arun Alagarsamy
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; 15. Life on land; 6. Clean water; 3. Good health

The floristic diversity of plants and their abundance were analyzed in 2.5 km campus to explore their medical importance by random sampling. The results for plant diversity in IIT-M campus showed nearly 100 species of flowering plants, with genera belonging to nearly 40 families. The most dominant family in the present study is Fabaceae with 15 species (25%) of the medicinal trees. In addition, the dominant medicinal herbs belong to the families of Acanthaceae, Apocynaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae containing 4 species (12%) each. The identified medicinal tree and herb are verified with Red data book to explore their conservation status of every identified medicinal trees and herbs. On comparison with the existing IUCN red data list, the conservation status of 73% of trees and herbs identified in the present study were not assessed. Also, the biodiversity of plants focused on ethano-botanical aspects to reveal their medicinal uses.