Wild edible fruits used by Badagas of Nilgiri District, Western Ghats, Tamilnadu, India

Nilgiri means "Blue Mountains". The entire area of the Blue Mountains constitutes the present district of Nilgiri. It was originally a tribal land and was occupied by the Todas, Kotas, Kurumbas, Kattunayakkas and Panyas. Among them, the Badagas are one of the major communities in the district who reside in the mountain as long as other tribal population. The weather in this district favours the growth of wild edible fruit crops. There are many edible fruits existing naturally in forest as well as in cultivable areas. These fruit plants are playing vital role in providing nutritional and economic values in the rural areas. This paper lists 30 wild edible fruits used by the Badagas of Nilgiri District for their conservation and cultivation purpose. But the commercial importance and the market value of these wild fruits is unknown to them. Hence this study is being taken to conserve those wild edible fruits and cultivate in large scale, to uplift their economic status in near future.


INTRODUCTION
India is one of the twelve mega diversity in the world. The Nilgiris falls within the Western Ghats and is considered to be a home of more then 3500 species of wild plants. The forest of the Nilgiris provide a large number of plants whose fruits, seeds, tubers, shoots etc. make an important contribution to the diet of the people, particularly those living near forest and other rural areas. These plants not only provide inexpensive food but several other useful products like medicine, fiber, fodder, dyes, etc. Historically, fruits and vegetables have been used as medicinal agents. Wild fruits contain a significant level of biological active components that fruits are rich source of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, but in contrast, wild fruits are often viewed with distrust. With the use of wild fruits not known, these people destroy the wild crop field for cultivation purpose.
Recent phytochemical investigations in fruits have attracted a great deal of attention, with mainly concentrations on their role in preventing diseases caused as a result of malnutrition. Though there are many wild fruits in this region, there is no proper collection, improvement and agro-techniques for these crops. Hence much emphasis should be given to exploration and collection, in situ or ex situ conservation, studying nutritional and anti-nutritional properties, product development and marketing (Sankaran et al., 2006).
The fruits are nature's gift to mankind. These wild fruits are chief source of vitamins, minerals and proteins. These constituents are essential for normal physiological well being and help in maintaining healthy state through development of resistant against pathogens (Bal, 1997). Rathod and Valvi (2011) studied the antinutritional factors of some wild edible fruits from Kolhapur district. Cyril et al. (1993) reported less known edible fruit-yielding plants of Nilgiris. It is known that the intake of wild crop reduces the rate of diseases and increases the rate of resistance and ageing. Fruit plants are playing a vital role in providing nutritional and economical security to the poor *Corresponding author. E-mail: dr.r.sathyavathi@gmail.com. mass in rural areas but the commercial importance and market value of these wild fruits in unknown to them. Hence the present study was made to list out identification of underutilized wild edible fruits used by the indigenous community of Badagas from Nilgiri hills, and to conserve those plants for their future generations.

Study area
The Nilgiris of Blue Mountains are some of most picturesque mountain ranges situated mainly in the Northwestern corner of Tamilnadu in South India. They are surrounded in the North by the state of Karnataka and West and Southwest by Kerala and lie between 11° 12' to 11° 43' and 76° 14' to 77° 11' E, and are meeting ground (or) nexus of three mountains system of Peninsular India, Western Ghats, Southern Ghats and Eastern Ghats. The Nilgiris comprise the second highest peak in India situated in the South of Himalayas. Udagamandalam (Ootacamund), the most popular hill station in southern India, is situated in a broad undulating valley at the foot of Doddabetta ( Figure 1).

Anthropolgy of Badagas
The name Badagas (corrupted to 'burgher' by the early European visitors to the hills) is similar to the word vadaga that means 'Northern', and the Badaga of the plateau are the descendents of canaries who immigrated to Karnataka. Unlike the tribes like Todas, Kotas and Kurumbas whose number never exceeded about a thousand, the Badagas are the largest social group in the Nilgiris, the present population of badagas is estimated at 1,50,000, spreading over 370 hamlets (www.badaga.org). The Badagas basically were included under the list of scheduled tribes till the 1971 census. After that, they were included under backward community list, making them eligible to avail 27% reservation in both central and state government jobs (www.badaga.org).
The badaga are split into a six-sub division: Wodeya, Haruva, Athikari, Kanakka, Badaga and Toreya. The first two sub divisions and several in the third sub division are purely vegetarian and are Lingayats and others are Saivites.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The present work is the outcome of intensive field studies undertaken in hamlet inhabited by Badaga community. Explorative field trips were regularly made once in a month of the year to all habitations to elicit information on medicinal plants used to treat various ailments. All the medicinal important plants were collected as per the information given by the informants. The plant specimens collected were identified with the help of Flora of Presidency of Madras (Gamble and Fischer, 1915), Flora of Nilgiri and Pulney Hills (Fyson, 1915) and Flora of South Indian Hill Station (Fyson, 1977), and confirmed with the authentic herbarium of Government of India, Botanical survey of India, Southern circle, Coimbatore and survey of medicinal plant collection unit, Government Arts College campus, Ootacamund. Field numbers were given for all the collected plant specimens. Herbarium specimens were prepared according to the method of Jain and Rao (1977). All the prepared herbarium specimens were deposited in the Department of Botany, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this present study, 30 wild edible fruits eaten by Badagas have been recorded and tabulated according to their plant name(s), family, local name, therapeutic uses and habits (  (Mujtaba and Khan, 2007). There is a huge genetic diversity which can be used for creating the gene bank (field and in vivo), and the collection, conservation and utilization of these crops and standardization of agrotechniques is essential for their profitable cultivation and maximum yield realization in these crops (Sankaran et al., 2006) (Figure 2).

Conclusion
The Nilgiri hill is fast growing for eco-tourism and other economical purpose, and this threatened their knowledge. This is indicative of the vast repository of knowledge of plants that is still available for global use, provided of course that it does not get lost before it can be tapped or documented. In the present scenario, traditional knowledge system in our country is fast eroding and there is an urgent need to inventories, record all ethno-botanical and cultural information among the diverse ethnic communities before the traditional cultures are completely lost. Therefore, documentation of information will help in conserving the knowledge. A comprehensive database of the plants used for various purposes could be saved for the forthcoming generations. In such cases, laboratory investigations and clinical trials are suggested to validate the therapeutic properties of these wild edible fruits for effective and safe use.