MEDICINAL PLANTS OF CHALSA FOREST
MEDICINAL PLANTS OF CHALSA FOREST
Chalsa Forest Range, a Himalayan foot hill forest range of India, represents one of the unique biodiversity region of world which is under little but continual disturbance by biological and anthropogenic factors.It is situated in Malbazar Subdivision of district Jalpaiguri,West Bengal, India. Vegetation of the forest is unique in the Nature. The forest is characterized by dense vegetation and a rich wild life. The forest range is very close to the river Jaldhaka.In addition Mithi river, Raidak river and Diana river are also very close to the forest range. Jaldhaka basin in the Chalsa region created some excellent habitats which have rich biodiversity that contains diverse assemblage of herbs, shrubs, trees, animals and microbes. The range is 535 ft from sea level. The soil is fertile in nature and strongly acidic. The temperature of this area varies from 20oC to 32oC during summer and from 8oC to 22oC during winter. Most of the area of this forest range is wet annual and humid. The forest is more or less homogenous in composition with admixed type of tree species. The forest is famous for some timber vegetation like Shorea robusta Gaertn., Lagerstromia speciosa Pers.,Terminalia belerica Roxb.,Chuckrasia tabularis A. Juss.,Terminalia tomentosa Roth., Sterculia villosa Roxb., Persea fructifera Kosterm., Beilschmiedia roxburghiana Nees.,etc[1]. However there is no reliable study on different types of non timber plants, their habitat, ecology and phytosociology. The forest range is also a house of endemic and exotic medicinal plants. The plants having various proprieties, which are useful in our day to day life. Some are used as medicine, while some are consumed as edible nutritious vegetables or fruits.Different tribal communities belonging to the villages adjacent to such forest are dependent upon the forest resources for their day to day livelihood practice. Many of the traditional healers, Kabiraj, Bez, also collect the medicinal plants for treatment of various diseases. In the process they collect the roots, rhizomes, bulbs, flowers, bark, fruits and other medicinally important parts of the plants for extracting drugs and unused parts of the plants were left in the forest. In this way, sometimes they destroy the important medicinal plants. Present paper deals with the occurrence of valuable medicinal herbaceous and shrubby plants in the study area and their ecological and phytosociological aspects.
Many of the plant species were used by people
for long period of time of human history for medicinal purpose which was
documented in Vedic literature includes; Charak Samhita and Sushruta Samhita [2].It
can be stated that existence of human on planet earth depends on diverse
species of plants for its medicinal and other beneficial properties. The
world health organization estimates that about 80% of the population of most
developing countries relies on herbal medicines for their primary healthcare
need. About 80% of human population in India is using herbal medicine to care
different kind of diseases [3].Traditionally, different types of
plants are used to cure different types of disease. Some herbal alternatives
assist prevention of the secondary complications of the disease. Since
medicinal plants and its derivatives continue to play a major role in the in
medical therapy, it is of utmost importance to conserve these resources for the
sake of mankind and future generations. For this regular ecological monitoring
of such plants in any vegetation including forest patches is obligatory.
Ecological and phytosociological evaluation of
the medicinal plant species is very important aspect in the field of forestry
as well as in other scientific studies like conservation, management and
bioprospecting of phytoresources. Information on changes in the herb and shrub
layer of
any forest ecosystem or natural ecosystem may be useful to assess
present-day issues of management relating to sustainability and biodiversity in
forestry and nature conservation[4].In present days the lack of
proper ecological knowledge can seriously hinder the conservation and
sustainable use of non timber plant species, especially in the face of
anthropogenic threats including overexploitation[5].Herbs and shrubs
are associated with a wide variety of organisms, and are increasingly
recognized to play an important role in controlling food chain and ecological
stability. Such plants provide food and shelter to to animal communities. However
a little cares was taken only for traditionally used medicinal plants. Thus,
this study aims at assessing the species composition, diversity,
Phytosociological and Ecological characteristics of herbs and shrub
communities.
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