INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 VALIDATION OF UNDER UTILIZED WILD EDIBLE FRUITS FROM THE SHOLA FOREST OF NILGIRIS, WESTERN GHATS, TAMIL NADU, INDIA Divya Bharathi G1, Saradha M1*, Vishnu KumarS2, Samy Durai P3 and Pugalenthi M2 1Department of Botany, Nirmala College for Women (Autonomous), Coimbatore - 641 018, Tamilnadu, India. 2Department of Botany, Government Arts College (Autonomous), Coimbatore - 641 018, Tamilnadu, India. 3Department of Botany, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India - 641 045 *Corresponding author: [email protected] Abstract The present study was initiated with an aim to highlight and document the traditional knowledge of Wild edible fruits used by the tribal and local community inhabiting in Nilgiris district. During the study the Shola forests of Nilgiris were visited frequently and information was collected through semi directive, open ended interview among the people inhabiting in the study area. The details on family, vernacular name, habit, status, mode of consumption, fruit type, mode of seed dispersal, fruit colour were tabulated. The collected fruits were identified and deposited at the herbaria of Nirmala College for Women, Coimbatore. The results revealed that the total 67 plant species belonging to 28 families and 40 genera have been documented in the present study. The habit of the species showed that trees were dominating when compared with the other habit plants. Among the different fruit type’s berries (37) were dominating. Zoochory (51) were the highest mode of seed dispersal. Red and purple were the most dominating fruit colour from the collected plants. The reported wild edible fruits could be conserved and further validation need for better utilization and provisions of the documented knowledge. Key words: Shola forest, Wild edible fruits, Western Ghats, Zoochory Volume 8 Issue 8 2019 36 http://infokara.com/ INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 I. INTRODUCTION Wild edibles fruits are consumed as a part of food habits people in many societies and intimately connected to virtually all aspects of their socio-cultural, spiritual life and health [1,2]. It plays a major role in meeting the nutritional requirement of the tribal population in remote parts of the country throughout the year [3,4,5,6,7]. The collection of wild species offers variety in family diet and subsidises to household food security [8,9]. Many people inhabiting bedides the forest using these wild edibles as a supplement of their basic need of food. Most of the foods are preserved to meet dry period or sold in rural market [10]. The charities of forest foods that make food security can be pigeon-holed into three main ways namely (i) Supplementary basis of food, (ii) Periodic foods in the diet and (iii) as alternative food supplies during drought. Knowledge of these underutilized fruits is food resources is part of traditional and undetermined natural knowledge [4]. India is rich in ethnic diversity and indigenous knowledge that have resulted in widespread ethnobotanical studies. In India there are about 537 different indigenous communities with extensive knowledge of plants [11,12]. Folklore and traditional knowledge is in the progression of deterioration due to disturbance of forest covers. Tropical montane forests are cloudy mountain ranges which are represented with most threatened ecosystems globally these forest ranges of tropical peninsular India are locally known as Shola, and the associated grasslands. From the past, edible wild fruits have been playing a very vital part in supplementing the diet of the people and other living organisms. Nature is interconnected between each species in the environment were interactions between fruit and vertebrate frugivores has made many improvements in recent years, principally for birds, and other animals such as rodents, primates, bats and a few other mammals, and fish [13]. Seed dispersal is only one step in the seed dispersal cycle which functions as a “demographic bridge” linking the end of the adult plant reproductive cycle with the establishment of their offspring. Long-distance seed dispersal mechanisms have recently received much attention, especially in the context of understanding and predicting plant migration [14]. There is urgent need to document the available information in detail for future application and scientific investigation. Hence the Volume 8 Issue 8 2019 37 http://infokara.com/ INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 present study is focused to document the wild edible fruits from the Nilgiris district, Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. II. STUDY AREA Nilgiris are most beautiful mountain ranges in Sothern India well noted for its shola vegetation. The mountain range looks so beautiful with patches of forest in the grassland. The thick forest vegetation has high vegetation of endemic and endangered flora and fauna. In view of exploitation and conservation of these wild edible fruits from the Sholas of Nilgiris an attempt has been made to take up the study. III. MATERIAL AND METHOD The present investigation was carried out in Shola forests of Nilgiri district to get information about wild edible fruits used by the tribal and local community living in Nilgiri district. The survey was conducted during November 2016 to May 2019. The wild edible fruits growing in natural habitats of Shola forest were collected, identified and authenticated with the help of valid references [15,16,17,18]. At the same time plant species were collected and herbarium sheets were prepared by traditional method and were deposited in Department of Botany, Nirmala College for Women, Coimbatore. The details on vernacular name of the plant, family, mode of seed dispersal, fruit colour, status of the plants and mode of consumption were registered and these details were collected from various informants through direct interviews. The tribal and local community people inhabiting in the borders of Shola forest had a sound knowledge about the edible fruits around their place and they regularly consume these fruits for healthy and nutritious life style. IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1. DOCUMENTATION OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve is an international biosphere reserve in the Western Ghats and it is very rich in floral and faunal diversity. Many studies have been carried out in the Nilgiri hills, but the outcome of the study have not reached the local and scientific communities to explore further. The results revealed that 67 plant species belonging to 28 families and 40 genera were documented (Table 1). The dominant family of the study were Moraceae (8), Solanaceae (7), Myrtaceae (7), Eleocarpaceae (6), Rosaceae (6), Euphorbiaceae (4), Passifloraceae (4), Piperaceae (3) and Rhamnaceae (3). Special interest in documenting the wild edible and medicinal fruits used by the Badagas of Nilgiri district Volume 8 Issue 8 2019 38 http://infokara.com/ INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 were 30 wild fruits were documented of which Solanaceae seems to be the dominating family in their study area and reported that these wild plants have very high amount of biologically active compounds as fruits are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients [19,20]. 70 wild edible fruits from the hills of Nilgiris the knowledge of these plants was reported to be obtained from the major tribes (Toda, Kurumba, Kota, Paniyas, Irulas and Kattunayakas) [7]. 4.2. LIFE FORM AND PARTS USED Analysis of habit forms indicates that 15 plants were trees, 12 were shrubs, 10 were large tree and liana, 7 climbers, 6 small trees and herb and 1 stout shrub in the documented plant species. Similar data have been reported on documentation of Wild Edible species in Maruthamalai hills of Southern Western Ghats of which it harbour a rich diversity of trees, shrubs and climbers [21]. Many research works have been carried out in identifying the life form analysis and related data [22,23,24,25]. 4.3. FRUIT TYPES Recent literature is concern with “fleshy fruits” (drupes and berries),and these are overlooked as the dispersal is done automatically by zoochory. All types of fruits have been considered, drupes with dry flesh have been classed with dry dehiscent pods or capsules. In the present analysis berry (37) are the dominant fruit type followed by drupe (21), capsule (5), sorosis (2) and aggregate beery and nut (1). It is observed that arboreal consumers have associated with color display and the thin wall layer around the fruits and theses fruits are juicy and sugar rich berries and drupe and belonging to the family Apocynaceae and Anacardiaceae. The fruits with arrilated seeds are Myristicaceae and Meliaceae and these fruit species are dispersed by canopy birds and monkeys, tiny seeded fruits belong to family Moraceae and Rubiaceae are dispersed by endozoochory [26]. 4.4. SEED DISPERSAL Many of these species are not restricted to single type of dispersal it may vary based on the species availability. Zoochory (51) is the dominant mode of seed dispersal followed by Orinthochory (12) and Autochory (4). In forest ecology dispersal of seeds is one of the main factor in determining the species composition and the structure of ecosystems [27,28]. Large mammals swallow whole seeds and hence contribute to the seed shadows of particular plant species in tropical regions [29]. Primates consist of 25% and 40% of the frugivore biomass in tropical forests. The consumption of large quantities of fruit, and defecate large numbers of Volume 8 Issue 8 2019 39 http://infokara.com/ INFOKARA RESEARCH ISSN NO: 1021-9056 viable seeds [30,31]. Evidence suggests that the absence of large and medium-sized vertebrate will lead to the reduced seed movement of animal-dispersed species. 4.5. FRUIT COLOUR About 19 shades of fruit colour have been studied in the present paper were red seem to be dominating colour that where observed in 19 species followed by purple (13), green (7), yellow and yellowish red (4), Pale yellow (3), Black, black purple, orange, pale green (2) and other colors such as brown, dark red, green yellow, light red, orange brown, pale brown red yellow, yellow brown and yellow green were noted in single species.