K. V. KRISHNAMURTHY,1 BIR BAHADUR,2 and T. PULLAIAH3
1Consultant, R&D, Sami Labs, Peenya Industrial Area, Bangalore–560058, Karnataka, India
2Department of Botany, Kakatiya University, Warangal–506009, Telangana State, India
3Department of Botany, Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur–515003, India
CONTENTS
1.1The West Coast and the Western Ghats
1.2Ethnic Diversity and Knowledge Systems and Factors That Impacted Them
1.3Utilitarian Aspects of Ethnic Communities of Western Peninsular India
This chapter deals with an introduction to the subsequent chapters covered in this volume. It describes the physical and biological features of the West Coast and Western Ghats of Peninsular India. It also deals with an introduction to the study areas and their ethnic diversity and plants of importance in medicine, food and other requirements of tribal people. An introduction to conservation measures involving sacred groves is also given. The ethnobotany of mangroves and bryophytes of these regions is also included.
The Indian subcontinent consists of the Himalayan mountains as the northern border, the almost flat expanse of the Indo-Gangetic plains in the middle and the triangular peninsular India with uplands and plateaus in the south bordered on both sides by narrow coastal plains along the seaboards (Bay of Bengal on the east, Arabian Sea on the west and the Indian Ocean on the South) (Valdiya, 2010). Each of these regions has not only distinct structural and lithographic features and physiography but also different geologic evolutionary histories. Peninsular India is 2,200 km long in the N-S direction and 1,400 km broad (in the broadest region) in the E-N direction, with its apex terminating at Kanyakumari at the extreme south. The western upland of peninsular India forms the Sahyadri Range (08° 19′ 18″–21° 16′ 24″ N and 72° 56′ 24″–78° 19′ 40′E). This range extends 1,600 km southwards from the Tapti river valley in southern Gujarat to Kanyakumari in southernmost Tamil Nadu. This range is conveniently divided into three zones (Valdiya, 2010): (i) Northern Sahyadri in Gujarat and Maharashtra, which is made of Late Cretaceous basaltic lavas; (ii) Central Sahyadri in Goa and Karnataka, which is made of Archaean gneisses and high-grade metamorphic rocks; and (iii) Southern Sahyadri in Kerala and Tamil Nadu which is made of Late proterozoic Charnockites and Khondalites. According to Valdiya (2010) “the NNW-SSE-trending fractures and faults, defining the ranges forming linear blocks make the Sahyadri a horst mountain of sorts. Its west-facing steep to a near vertical flank is characterized by a multiplicity of precipitous encarpments disposed en echelon and alternating with very narrow irregular terraces. These features have given rise to a ‘landing stair’ known as the Western Ghats.” Thus, the mountain range is the Sahyadri and the escarpment is the Western Ghats (W. Ghats). The Sahyadri hill range meets the Eastern hill ranges (E. Ghats) at Nilgiris area. The Sahyadri hill range is located about 15–100 km inland from the west coast, depending on its location. The total estimated area of W. Ghats is 1,64,280 km2, which is about 5% of the total area of India (Nayar et al., 2014).
On the northern Sahyadri and on a larger part of the central Sahyadri the eastern flank slopes gently eastwards; it drains the Godavari, Krishna, Tungabhadra, and Kaveri rivers, all of which flow eastward over long distances to discharge their water into the Bay of Bengal. There are also west-flowing shorter rivers, such as Ulhas, Vaitarni, Kalinadi, Gangavali, Sharavati, Netravati, Mandovi, Payaswini, and Valapattan that arise in the hill range; these rivers often flow deep vertically down (sometimes as waterfalls, such as Jog falls). From the southern Sahyadri arise the rivers like Noyyal and Vaigai that flow eastward, and Ponnani, Periyar, Pamba, Achankovil and Kakkad that flow westward.
The average elevation of the Sahyadri is 1,000 to 1,200 m. The high peaks are Salher (1,567 m), Harishchandragarh (1,424 m), Mahabaleshwar (1,438 m), Kalsubai (1,714 m), Thadiannamalai (1,745 m), Doddabetta (2,637 m), Kolaribetta (2629 m), Mukurti (2554 m), Anaimudi (2695 m), Vavulmala (2339 m), Kodaikanal (2133 m), Chembra Peak (2100 m), Elivaimala (2088 m), Banasura (2073 m), Kottamala (2019 m), Meesapulimala (2640 m), Elaimalai (2,670 m), Vandaravu peak (2553 m), Kattumala (2552 m), and Anginda (2383 m). In general. southern Sahyadri has taller peaks than the central or northern Sahyadri. Between the Nilgiris and Anaimalais is the Palghat gap (25–30 km wide) (Valdiya, 2010). There is also a minor Sengotta gap at the extreme south. The rainfall in the hill range ranges from less than 1,000 mm to over 7,450 mm, greater rainfall being seen in southern Sahyadri. The rain-shadow regions (on eastern slopes) get only 500 mm rainfall on an average. The average temperature ranges between 15–24°C.
The West Coast (W. Coast) is characterized by an array of near-shore terrestrial cliff faces, dunes, sandy shores and urban, village, agricultural and industrial landscapes. There are also near-shore islands (for example the Anjdiv Island off Goa). In some places there are estuaries, coves, deltas, lagoons, embayments, backwaters, mangrove vegetation, salt marshes, mud flats and salt panes. The Konkan Coast is 8–24 km wide and is a rocky shore of cliffs, bays, coves and small beaches. The Kanara Coast (in Karnataka) is 30–50 km wide, becoming 70 km wide near Mangalore. The Malabar Coast (in Kerala) is 20–100 km wide. A 80 km long and 5–10 km wide lagoon is barred by a 55 km long sand spit and this gives rise to the Vembanad Lake. There are a few more barred lagoons in the Malabar Coast. The mangrove systems of W. Coast are strikingly very small and patchy here and there when compared to those of the E. Coast. The area covered by brackish water in W. Coast is around 3,30,000 ha, while that of Kerala alone is around 500 km2.; the Vembanad brackish water area alone has an area of 200 km2. The W. Coast of peninsular India is affected by very prominent NNW-SSE faults, cut and locally displaced by ESE-WNW to E-W oriented shear zones. One of the consequences of continuing fault reactivation is the evolution of the spectacular escarpment referred to as W. Ghats that sharply defines the western flank of the Sahyadri range (Valdiya, 2010).
Phytogeographically, the W. Ghats can be divided into four regions (Abraham, 1985): (i) Region between Tapti River and Goa; (ii) Region between Kalinadi and Coorg; (iii) The Nilgiris; and (iv) The Anamalai, Cardomomum and Palani hills. To these can be added the southernmost W. Ghats, the Agasthiamalai, which forms a unique phytogeographic zone. The W. Coast region can be added as the sixth phytogeographic region. The main vegetation types of W. Ghats are scrub savanna, semi-deciduous forests, dry-deciduous forests, moist deciduous forests, wet evergreen forests, montane forests, grasslands, shola forests, wetland vegetation, marshes (particularly Myristica marshes), etc. In addition to these, there are mangrove forests. The W. Ghats form one of the 34 hotspots of the world with a high degree of endemic taxa of plants, animals, fungi, lichens and microbes. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the eight “hottest hotspots” of biological diversity in the world (Myers et al., 2000). More than 60 genera and 1,500 species of plants are reported to be endemic to W. Ghats, although according to Nayar et al. (2014) there are only 1,270 endemic flowering plant species in this region. Around 27–35% of India’s plants are reported to exist in W. Ghats and the adjacent coastal region. According to Nayar et al. (2014) there are around 8080 specific and subspecific flowering taxa, of which 7,402 species, 593 subspecies and varieties are confirmed, while the status of 85 taxa need to be verified beyond doubt. The W. Ghats is also home to 145 wild plant species related to cultivated taxa: it also contains more than 30% of the country’s mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and fish species (Bawa et al., 2007). Many animals are endemic to W. Ghats (Gunawardene et al., 2007). W. Ghats is recognized as a World Heritage Site with 39 of its regions included as very sensitive areas.
The generally accepted model of human evolution emphasizes that the modern human species originated about 200,000 years ago in East Africa and then started to migrate to different regions of the world around 70,000 -50,000 years ago. The origin and settlement of Indian people are still matters that are debated. Although the initial migrations to India might be accidental or by chance, the subsequent migrations were essentially due to attraction to India’s biological wealth. Humans appear to have spread to many parts of India by the middle of Palaeolithic period (around 50,000 to 20,000 years ago) (Misra, 2001). It is generally agreed that the earliest widespread occupants of major part of N. India were from the Dravidian base, but with the arrival of Indo-European language speakers they were pushed in more and more numbers to peninsular India; initially peninsular India had a much scarcer populations of Dravidians (Basu et al., 2003; Kanthimathi et al., 2008). Most, if not all, migrations after the 16th century were due to pulls from their destinations and pushes in their homeland (Gadgil et al., 1998).
There are 461 tribal communities in India (Singh, 1992) who speak about 750 dialects, which can be classified into four language groups: Austro-Asian, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European. The W. Ghats/W. Coast region of India first came under human influence during the Palaeolithic Age around 20,000 years ago (Gadgil and Thapar, 1990), although some consider that it happened around 15,000 years ago (Subash Chandran, 1997). The latter date is supported by the discovery of stone tools from some of the river valleys of W. Ghats, while artifacts of this Age were discovered in certain other areas of W. Ghats. These evidences indicate the hunter-gatherer mode of subsistence of these early occupants. However, in the Mesolithic Age (between 12,000 and 5,000 years ago) most of these hunter-gatherer communities got transformed into food cultivators, particularly as podu cultivators in the hill valleys. In Chapter 2 of this volume Krishnamurthy et al. give a detailed account on the most important ethnic communities of W. Ghats and W. Coast of peninsular India. They are mostly responsible for the development of ethnic knowledge on plants of this region as well as for the domestication of some useful plants that had originated in this region, such as pepper, Garcinia species, etc. They were also responsible for cultivating some of the exotic plants that were introduced into this region long back in history. These include taxa like cloves, Myristica, cardamomum, Areca catechu, etc.
The west coast of peninsular India is one region in the whole world in general and particularly in the Indian Ocean- Arabian Sea region that had the greatest of impacts in its ethnic diversity and ethnobotany. Right from third millennium BCE this region was a trade zone and people from Mediterranean, Rome, Greek, Arab, East African and S.E. Asian regions were visiting the west coast for trade on several items from and to India. Trade had a great impact on the ethnic societies all along the west coast; the traditional life style, profession, culture and social life of the some of the tribes were changed totally. They were made to involve themselves in trade either directly or indirectly. Trade also forced some ethnic societies to resort to cultivation of certain plant species, which they were previously collecting from the wild. Sustained use of plant resources gave rise to a system where excess collected/cultivated were made available for trade. There was a change in religion, particularly Christianization or Islamization of originally ‘Hindu’ tribal members, either by force or volition that resulted in a great genetic mix-up. Because of the impact of Arabs, E. Africans, Dutch, Portuguese and English people, there was also creolization and production of pidgins (mixture of languages), which again changed the prevailing socio-cultural environment. Added to trade and religious effects, polity also had its effects on the ethnic diversity and ethnobotany of this region. Details on all the above impacts are detailed in the third chapter of this book by Krishnamurthy.
The west coast of peninsular India underwent a lot of changes after the 15th century due to the arrival of colonial powers of Europe, such as the Dutch, Portuguese and English for exploitation of the resources and to trade them. The Portuguese and Dutch were greatly interested in the traditional medicinal knowledge and the raw drugs, and medicinal formulations of the local ethnic communities so that they can be used by the Europeans at home. The Dutch exploited the Ezhava community’s medical knowledge and this resulted in the Dutch Governor at Cochin to compile the 12-volume book Hortus Malabaricus. The Portuguese doctor Garcia da Orta who got settled down at Goa exploited the traditional medical knowledge available to him in the west coast and Deccan and came out with a classical medical book. These two major works along with two or three other works brought to light the superiority of Indian traditional medical wisdom, which was not based on Hippocratic approach. Krishnamurthy and Pullaiah have dealt with the European contribution to Western Indian Enthobotany in the period between 16th and 18th centuries CE in the fourth chapter of this book.
The world has known a great variety of cultures each with its own knowledge, belief and value systems. Religion, formal or informal, primitive or modern has always played a very important role in determining these knowledge and value systems. However, there are certain basic parallels and common aspects in the different traditional knowledge and belief systems that are in vogue even today in many parts of the world. One such common feature is conceiving life of people in terms of three common interrelated and inseparable domains: spiritual, human and natural domains. Traditional Knowledge in the nature domain includes thematic fields related to food and health practices and their biotic sources, and that in the social domain included knowledge about local organization, leadership, management of natural resources, conflict resolution, gender relations, art and language. The spiritual domain includes knowledge and belief systems about the invisible divine world, spiritual forces, ancestors and about how these systems translate this knowledge into values and ritualistic practices. None of these three domains remains and operates in isolation and hence all the three are inseparable and are highly integrated. Somasekhar has dealt in detail with the traditional knowledge, worldviews and belief systems of the various ethnic groups of W. Ghats and their relevance in integrating their natural, spiritual and practical worlds in Chapter 5.
Of the three approaches available to study and document ethnobotanicals, the utilitarian or economic approach (the other two being cognitive and cultural) primarily motivated research in bioprospecting of plants used as sources of food, medicine and other utilitarian values to human beings. This ethnodirected approach has enabled the discovery several useful ethnic plant resources and has introduced newer nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and molecules of great importance for human consumption. India is one of the major areas of the world known for the diversity of its ethnic societies and ethnic knowledge on plants. As is to be mentioned in Chapter 2 of this volume, the W. Ghats and W. Coast of peninsular India have several ancient tribal communities with very rich knowledge on ethnobotanicals.
In 1990, Mike Balick emphasized the value of ethnobotany in the identification of therapeutic agents from the rainforests and that only a few of them have been studied for their potential medicinal uses (Balick, 1990). His work also indicated at the wealth of unstudied plants, particularly those whose medicinal efficacy has been proved by ethnic knowledge of many ancient tribals. Since then there have been numerous scientific articles on the use of traditional biodiversity knowledge in bioprospecting of medicinal plants. Indian scientists also took up this lead and documented traditional ethno-medicinal knowledge held by various tribal communities. Noorunnisa Begum et al. have summarized all information relating to the ethnomedicinal knowledge of the tribals of western peninsular India in Chapter 6 of this volume. They have not only traced briefly the history of ethno-medico-botany of this region but also have enlisted the plant taxa used by different ethnic communities for treating various ailments.
Many Indian ancient tribes are of the pastoral type and have been instrumental in domestication of wild cattle breeds as well as in maintaining the domesticated and native breeds for future breeding programs. Pastoralists mainly depend upon livestock keeping for their livelihood; they allow their cattle to graze on common property resources. The pastorals are usually nomadic, but in recent times have become settled and look after their animals often out a ‘God-given’ duty. The life of the Toda tribe would be unimaginable without the daily rituals associated with buffaloes, which are very dear to them. They were quite aware of the problems of breeding and maintaining these cattle varieties; particularly they were aware of the diseases that affect the cattle. Hence, they had, by trial and error, identified potential ethnoveterinary as well as fodder plant taxa that are found around them respectively for curing the various ailments and feeding the cattle they had domesticated and were using for getting milk, manure and fuel, plowing and carting. A number of ethnic communities of western peninsular India are pastorals, at least in the past; as examples we can mention the Kurubas of Karnataka and Todas of Nilgiris. Most of the ethnoveterinary knowledge of these communities are transmitted orally from one generation to another through a family lineage and because of breakage of this link in many cases, such knowledge is greatly lost. Some community-based approaches and efforts of some NGOs like BAIF, ANTHRA, SEVA and FRLHT this knowledge is being retrieved and documented. In Chapter 7 of this volume Nair and Punyamurthy have dealt with in detail about the ethnoveterinary plant taxa. Their article highlights the various plants used to cure common and rare diseases of cattle (amounting to at least 20) by the various ethnic communities. Their paper also deals with documentation of local ethnoveterinary practices and assesses these practices and knowledge for their efficacy and safety, recommendation of positively assessed practices for immediate implementation and the need to revitalize healthy ethnoveterinary traditions. They have also addressed the problem of the antimicrobial resistance and the relevance of traditional plants to redress this problem.
Around 3 million people of the world, particularly those who live in the tropical and subtropical belt, are at the risk getting malarial fever caused by the protozoan species of the genus Plasmodium and on an average around 200 million malarial cases are known in the globe (WHO, 2014). The problem of malarial fever is unique that it has to be tackled: at the level of the parasite, Plasmodium and at the level of its spreading-vector, the mosquito. Unless both these are taken care of, malaria cannot be easily eradicated. Traditional ethnic communities that live in tropical/subtropical regions of the world, particularly in India and Africa, have been living with the malarial incidence for several centuries and have come up with simple plant-based remedies for both prevention and cure of the disease and also for combating the vector mosquitoes (preventive measures) and the parasitic Plasmodium (curative measures) once infected. In Chapter 8 of this volume Prakash et al. have dealt with the medicinal flora of W. Ghats that are used against malaria and the endogenous development aspects related to it.
India has some extremely unusual vegetables and fruits as well as an unparalleled variety of them. Although the nutritional information regarding many of them are available, we do not have much information of those used by the ancient ethnic communities, particularly of western peninsular India. Unlike the modern food systems, those of ethnic communities cover the full spectrum of life. In the last three to four centuries there had happened a great disconnection between traditional people and the food they used to take, particularly due to globalization and homogenization which have replaced traditional and local food cultures. High yield crops that require high-put farming technologies and monoculture agriculture have largely degraded ethnic ecosystems and have harmed traditional agro-ecological zones and practices. Moreover, the modern food technologies and industries have caused diet-related chronic diseases and different forms of malnutrition and have distorted greatly local food security and safety (Burlingame, 2011). Since food is a human right and since modern food systems have affected traditional food systems there is an urgent need to protect the heritage of indigenous people and the health of their culturally determined foods and food systems from being lost. Traditional foods are not only foods but also medicines as they have both nutraceutical and therapeutic values. Many of the tribal-used food sources have amazing therapeutic effects on many common ailments of humans. If these tribal food plants/nutraceuticals are properly exploited, India can potentially contribute in a significant way to the world fruit and vegetable market not only in terms of food value but also in terms of therapeutic value. In Chapter 9 of this volume Sridhar and Karun discuss in detail the food plants of W. Ghats that have both food and therapeutic values. These plants should not only be conserved and protected but also should be subjected to detailed research with reference to their chemistry, energy value, nutrient value and therapeutic effects, especially in comparison to food plants obtained from modern agriculture (Erasmus, 2009).
Species of plants provide a vast array of products used by humankind worldwide. Certain plants have been exploited directly from the wild, while a number of them are from cultivated sources. In spite of vast overall development, plant resources largely remain poorly understood, underexploited and poorly documented as most of them are under the domain of ancient traditional ethnic societies (Krishnamurthy, 2003). Knowledge of plants use from these traditional societies has not been translated into greater and wider use largely because of poor documentation of ethnic knowledge on plants. Besides serving as foods and medicines many plants are known from ethnic sources to serve as ornamentals, timbers, fibers, dyes, fuel/renewable energy and for a host of other products used in industry and commerce. The W. Ghats of India particularly is a good source of non-food and non-medical plants of great value, a knowledge about which was largely provided by the different ethnic communities living there. Karuppusamy and Pullaiah have given a detailed account of such plants in Chapter 10 of this volume.
Mangroves are intertidal vegetations that are characteristically located in littoral, sheltered and low-lying tropical and subtropical coasts, although they dominate river delta, lagoons and estuarine complexes developed from terrigenous sediments (Tomlinson, 1986). In India, although mangroves dominate the eastern coastal line, the western coast does have mangrove patches whenever west-flowing rivers join the Arabian sea. Mangrove resources have been traditionally exploited by the coast-living ethnic communities of the western peninsular coastal India for various purposes. Pullaiah et al. have dealt with in detail the ethnobotany of mangroves in Chapter 11 of this volume. The uses range from food and medicine to other uses.
The modern scientifically oriented and techno savvy society often mistakenly considers that religion and belief systems are not interested in conserving various biodiversity elements. On the other hand, religious values very often help to conserve and sustainably manage biodiversity (Ramanujan, 2004). The long-prevailing practice of conserving patches of various types of forest vegetation with an in-built temple or idol/totem of deity/spirit was in vogue in India (and a few other places of the world) (Hughes and Subash Chandran, 1998; Hughes and Swan, 1986). This is particularly true of the W. Ghats. Sacred groves are the best institution that were designed and established by traditional communities of this region not only to conserve the ecosystem/vegetation around them but also to sustainably obtain their basic requirements in a non-destructive manner. In Chapter 12 of this volume, the efficacy of sacred groves as the most effective conservation method for protecting the biodiversity of W. Ghats has been detailed by Krishnamurthy, citing concrete living examples of sacred spaces.
In ethnobotanical literature attention is often given to flowering plants as they are the most dominant and obvious group of plants. Lower plants, such as Algae, Bryophytes and Pteridophytes do not find adequate attention from ethnobotanists. India, particularly the W. Ghats, is a region rich in Bryophyte flora and various ethnic communities have often come across them and tried to utilize them for various purposes. In Chapter 13, Afroz Alam discusses the various aspects of Ethnobryology. This chapter indicates to us that focused research in future should be done on the ethnobotany of these neglected groups of plants in diverse localities of India and elsewhere in the world.
•Ethnic Diversity
•Ethnoveterinary Plants
•Peninsular India
•Sacred Groves
•Traditional Food
•Traditional Medicines
•West Coast
•Western Ghats
Balick, M.J. (1990). Ethnobotany and the identification of therapeutic agents from the rainforest. In: Chadwick, D.J. & Marsh, J. (Eds.). Bioactive Compounds from Plants. Wiley, Chichester, pp. 22–32.
Basu, A. Mukherjee, N., Roy, S., Sengupta, S., Banerjee, S., Chakraborty, M., Dey, B., Roy, M., Roy, B., Hattacharyya, N.P., Roychoudhury, S. & Majumder, P.P. (2003). Ethnic India: A genomic view with special reference to peopling and structure. Genomic Res. 13, 2277–2290.
Bawa, K.S., Das, A., Krishnamurthy, J. Karanth, J.U., Kumar, N.S. & Rao, M. (2007). Ecosystem a Profile: Western Ghats and Sri Lanka Biodiversity Hotspot-Western Ghats Region. Critical Ecosystem partnership Fund, Virginia, USA.
Burlingame, B. (2009). Preface. pp. V–VI. In: Kuhnlein, H.V., Erasmus, B. & Spigelski, D. (Eds.). Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems. FAO, Rome.
Chandran, M.D.S. (1997). On the ecological history of the Western Ghats. Curr. Sci. 73, 146–155.
Erasmus, B. (2009). Foreword. pp. ix–x. In: Kuhnlein, H.V., Erasmus, B. & Spigelski, D. (Eds.). Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems. FAO, Rome.
Gadgil, M., Joshi, N.V., Manoharan, S., Patil, S. & Shambu Prasad, U.V. (1998). Peopling of India. In: Balasubramanin, D. & Appaji Rao, N. (Eds.). The Indian Human Heritage. Universities Press, Hyderabad, India. pp. 100–129.
Gadgil, M. & Thapar, R. (1990). Human Ecology in India. Some Historical Perspective. Interdisciplinary Sci. Rev. 15, 209–223.
Gunawardene, N.R., Daniels, A.E.D., Gunatilleke, I.A.U.N., Gunatilleke, C.V.S., Karunakaran, P.V., Nayak, K.G., Prasad, S., Puyravaud, P., Ramesh, B.R., Subramanian, K.A., Hughes, G.J.D. & Subash Chandran, M.D. (1998). Sacred groves around the earth: an overview. In: Ramakrishnan, P.S. (Ed.). Conserving the sacred for biodiversity management. Oxford & IBH publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, pp. 69–85.
Hughes, J.D. & Swan, J. (1986). How much of the earth is sacred space? Environ. Rev. 10, 247–259.
Kanthimathhi, S., Vijaya, M. & Ramesh, A. (2008). Genetic study of Dravidian castes of Tamil Nadu. J. Genetics. 87, 175–179.
Krishnamurthy, K.V. (2003). Textbook on Biodiversity. Science Publishers, New Hampshire, USA.
Misra, V.N. (2001). Prehistoric human civilization of India. J. Biol. Sci. (Suppl.) 26, 421–431.
Nayar, T.S., Rasiya Beegam, A. & Sibi, M. (2014). Flowering Plants of the Western Ghats. 2 Vols. Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, India.
Ramanujan, M.P. (2004). Sacred Groves—A Dying Wisdom? In: Muthuchelian, K. (Ed.). Biodiversity Resource Management and Sustainable Use. Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India, pp. 180–190.
Singh, K.S. (1993). Peoples of India (1985–92). Curr. Sci. 64, 1–10.
Tomlinson, P.B. (1986). The Botany of Mangroves. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Valdiya, K.S. (2010). The making of India: Geodynamic Evolution. Macmillan Publications Ltd., New Delhi.
WHO (2014). World Malaria Report. World Health Organization. Geneva.