LESSER KNOWN WILD EDIBLE PLANTS OF TEHSIL JAWALI, DISTRICT KANGRA, HIMACHAL PRADESH

Abstract

In the era of population explosion and change of weather conditions, there is food insufficiency in and around the world, but fortunately people who are living in the lap of nature; depend on the nature for wide variety of food including wild edible plants. The plants which are lesser known to common people but widely used by rural tribal people for their livelihood are very important in the diet and in the social life of the rural population as they are always collected when in a particular season, and sold by villagers in the near markets. In the present survey trees (67%) are dominant species in the study area. Other highly dominant species are shrubs (27%) and herbs (6%). The most frequently utilized wild edible plants parts were fruits (36%) followed by leaves and flowers (13%), seed and kernel (9%), bark and root ( 6%) each, and shoot (3%) from recorded fruit species in the month of December 5 fruit plants like Bauhinia variegata, Zizhiphus mauritinia fruiting this month. And in the month of October plants like Ficus palmata, Terminalia belliricaare fruiting. The present study has been conducted in the different villages of the Jawali Tehsil of Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. The study of underutilized fruits is important not only to identify the potential sources, which could be utilized as an alternative food but also to select promising types for domestication and which can be converted into various value added products. These documented underutilized fruits were selected for development of value added products which will enhance economy of rural population. Among them, some species have good prospects for marketing as well as for processing as they are of very attractive color, excellent taste, and flavor and are known to possess medicinal properties. Some of them are highly perishable in nature and are small in size (akhey and toot). Some plant species are considered as a delicacy are marketed in large quantities viz. desi ambla, toot, dhura, lassiyade.