Missing Dendrophthoe Herbal Formulations from Dharwad, Karnataka.

Random Ethnobotany Notes by Pankaj Oudhia. Part-518

Missing Dendrophthoe Herbal Formulations from Dharwad, Karnataka.  

“But he is here for studying Parthenium menace not for medicinal plants. Keep your Formulations with you.” It was voice of the local person travelling with me in Dharwad area of Karnataka state.

 I was at University of Agricultural Sciences for International Conference on Parthenium Management. After my paper presentation group of university professors invited me for field trip to demonstrate the impact of imported Mexican beetle Zygogramma on Parthenium population.

 “Let’s visit to farmer’s field where you can ask them openly about the impact.” They proposed.  

The formal discussion with farmers turned into informal when I started sharing knowledge about medicinal weeds present in surroundings. Farmers were not in favor of chemical weed control methods suggested by the university professors. They liked the concept of weed management through utilization adopted by the farmers of Chhattisgarh.

From Medicinal weeds the discussion shifted to Dendrophthoe infesting Mango trees.

“Although it is considered as harmful to mango trees but from generations we know that it is very useful remedy not only for our cattle but also for our family.” Senior farmers shared valuable knowledge.

 As response many farmers shared tens of Formulations in which they use this species both internally as well as externally. Instead of noting down all formulations I kept it in my in-built memory disk.  

Later when I collected information of thousands of Dendrophthoe based Formulations from different corners of India and also from Nepal, Sri Lanka (and from other parts of the world) and started writing about it my database I added many Dharwad Formulations with full detail. But ten Formulations are still missing partially. I searched the internet and various databases of medicinal plants and Traditional Knowledge but failed to get information about these Formulations. I tried to approach my contacts in Dharwad but the gap of +15 years emerged as constraint.

At that time after returning back to Dharwad I shared these Formulations with the Traditional Healers of Bastar in Chhattisgarh. These Traditional Healers consider Dendrophthoe collected from different forest species as valuable medicine. They thanked me for sharing Dharwad Formulations. I am confident that now when I meet them again I will get enriched Formulations.

Hoping to meet them in January 2013.

(Source: Pankaj Oudhia’s Medicinal Plant Database http://www.pankajoudhia.com)

© Pankaj Oudhia