Non-Timber Forest Products of Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh is the fourth largest state in area and fifth largest in population with 33 tribal communities accounting 5, 024,104 (6.59%) people. The tribals mostly rely on forests for their day to day needs. The present report deals with 506 species belonging to 150 genera and 127 families used by the tribals for their non-timber forest products. Most of the edible parts are fruits (196) followed by leaves (152), seeds (41), tubers (30), flowers (27), tender branches (19), tender shoots (10), roots (7) and whole plant (6). Of the 506 species, 279 are used as vegetables. Most of the wild edible plants are getting depleted due to over exploitation. Steps should be taken to conserve the depleting wild food plants since they are the future genetic resources for the hungry millions of our country. Detailed investigation on the chemical composition and nutritive qualities/toxic effects of all the wild edible plant species becomes the need of the hour. This book is useful to the researchers in the fields of Ethnobotany, Economic Botany, Traditional Knowledge and Biotechnology.