XVI International Botanical Congess

Western Ghats is one of the 18 mega biodiversity centeres in the world. As being one of the ecological hot spot in India, it is housing a enriched gene pool comprising wild to medicinal and endangered plants though documentation on the floristic resoures of western Ghats are pouring out dramatically in the recent past, still a lot has to be done to exploit the hither to untrapped resources of this region. In this context the present study apprisee the floristic, ethanobotanical and ecological status of the plants and their conservation. The study area, Seithur Hills situated in Eastern slope of the Western Ghats which comes under Srivilliputhut Reserved Forest of Tamil Nadu in India. There are 17 plants facing threats from the ecological destroyers. Prominent among them is EUGENIA DISCIFERA and VERNONIA TRAVANCORIA. In addition to that this area is endowed with rich bio-diversity of medicinal plants like GLORIOSA SUPERBA, RAUALFIA SERPENTINA and WITHAMNIA SOMIFERA. Attempts were made to conserve the threatened plants in a successful manner.