Ethnomedicinal plants used by Mali tribes of Ananthagiri Mandal, Alluri Sitaramaraju District, A.P, India

An ethnomedicinal survey was carried out in Ananthagiri Mandal, Alluri Sitaramaraju District, Andhra Pradesh, India. For documentation of important ethnomedicinal plants and information from the local Mali community about their medicinal uses. The traditional knowledge of primitive Mali tribe traditional uses was collected through questionnaires and personal interviews during field trips. The identification and nomenclature of the listed plants were based on the Flora of Andhra Pradesh. A total of 60 plant species belong to 53 genera and 37 families were identified by taxonomic description and locally by ethnomedicinal knowledge of people existing in the region.


Introduction
India has a century-old tradition of using medicinal plants and herbal medicines for the alleviation of various diseases and ailments, as well as for the promotion of health and happiness. Majumdar [1] had done scrutiny of literature on Indian medicine. Kirtikar and Basu [2] and Chopra et al. [3][4][5] published well-established documents on Indian medicinal plants, which were worthy of reference today. Janaki Ammal [6] stressed the need for seeking the help of the aboriginals in the tribal regions of Assam, the Himalayas, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Western Ghats for ethnobotanical findings. This plant-based traditional knowledge has become a recognised tool in the search for new sources of drugs and Neutraceuticals [7]. Some work on medicinal plants about their utilization and conservation has been conducted in many parts of India [8][9][10][11]. Ethnomedicinal plants are generally used for curing various ailments like diabetes, dysentery, typhoid, and jaundice. Different parts of the plant, including roots, leaves, fruits, and flowers, are used for the treatment of jaundice. Furthermore, jaundice is not just a disease but rather a sign of a disease that occurs in the liver, which indicates impairment of liver functioning [12][13][14]. The aim of the present work was an investigation and documentation of medicinal plants used by Mali tribes of Ananthagiri Mandal, Alluri Sitaramaraju District, Andhra Pradesh.

Study area
Ananthagiri Mandal of Alluri Sitaramaraju District, Andhra Pradesh, is the higher altitude zone in the hilly tracts of the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh. It has the second-highest tribal population in Andhra Pradesh. It lies in between latitudes 17 o -50 1 and 18 o -35 1 north and longitude 82 o -17 1 and 83 o -1 1 East with a total geographical area of 3, 24,965 Hector ( Figure. 1). Mali tribes are chiefly residing in the densely wooded hill slopes in the scheduled areas of Alluri Sitaramaraju districts of Andhra Pradesh. They are experts in Podu cultivation. They grow millets like Ragi, Sama and Korra and Oil seeds like niger, castor and pulses like red gram in podu fields.

Methodology
Information on the use of medicinal plants was collected during the year 2022 -2023 through field surveys in different interior villages of the Ananthagiri Mandal, Alluri Sitaramaraju district. The questionnaires were devised to identify the indigenous knowledge of plant-based remedies from primitive Khondu people. Information was gathered through semistructured interviews that were held with selected knowledgeable men and women in Mali tribes. At the end of each interview, the plant specimens were collected, dried by using the routine botanical collection and herbarium techniques, and identified and preserved [15]. The representative taxa were collected and identified with the help of floras [16][17] and made into a herbarium. The voucher specimens were housed in the Botany Department Herbarium (BDH), Department of Botany, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.

Results and discussion
During exploration trips, medicinally useful information have been recorded on 60 plant species belonging to 53 genera and 37 families were recorded which are exploited by the Mali tribes for their healthcare (Fig.1). The family-wise analysis of ethnomedicinal data revealed that out of 37 families the dominant ones are Fabaceae represented by 5 species followed by Moraceae and Liliaceae each with 4 species, Caesalpiniaceae and Apocynaceae each with 3 species Verbenaceae, Solanaceae, Sapindaceae, Myrtaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Convolvulaceae, Araceae, Annonaceae and Acanthaceae with 2 species each, remaining 23 families were single species. From the present study, it is evident that the local people used herbs and trees (24) each, followed by Climbers (6) Shrubs (5)  Among the different plant parts, the leaves (35) are the most frequently used for the treatment of diseases followed by stem bark (26), root (22), stem (8), root bark (7), fruit (5), whole plant, tuber, seed and rhizome with (4), flower (3), bark (2) and gum, inflorescence, latex and resin were consist single (1) species. There is no standardized measure on the dose for most of the ethnomedicines in the study area. The dose depends on the traditional healer that prepares the herbs for medicinal purposes or it may also depend upon the disease severity [18]. The mode of preparation and uses of plants mostly form of Paste (80, 67%) followed by powder (22, 18%), decoction (12, 10%), juice, milk, paste, pills and sap combined (5, 4%). Most of the ethnomedicines are prepared using a single plant in the region while some others are prepared by mixing parts of more than one plant. Sudhakar and Vedavathy [19] reported 67 edible plants belonging to 59 genera and 41 families used by the tribals of the Chittoor district. Rao and Reddy [20] studied traditional medicine for the treatment of bone fractures for human beings and cattle with the paste of leaves of Pupalia lappacea in Ranga Reddy district. Shanmukha Rao [21] studied about ethnobotany of Pathapatnam Mandal, Srikakulam district. He reported 158 species belonging to 68 genera and 54 families.

Conclusion
The ethnomedicinal plants demonstrated the presence of several phytochemicals in them and displayed phenolic and flavonoid compounds with hepatoprotective properties in most of the experimental studies performed with these plants. Nevertheless, very few studies are carried out on the scientific validation of medicinal plants utilizing biochemical, clinical, and pharmacological screening to validate the healing folklore medicine. In the future, it is, therefore, very important to pursue steps that do not deviate from shifting the view of tribal people toward their indigenous belief in the treatment of healing to develop successful drugs or to discover new potential sources of drugs.