Ethnobotanical Studies on the Ferns and Fern Allies of Rajasthan

Description is given of the ethnobotanical importance of species of ferns and fern allies collected from different localities throughout Rajasthan. The 'tribal' informations are confirmed by Ayurvedic Vaidiyas and 'Hakeems'.

In Rajasthan the well-known tribal races are Bheel, Garassia, Sanshi, Meena, Gadaria-lohar, etc. Some of them inhabit the Aravallies and Chambal revines which possess sufficient vegetation of pteridophytes (Bir and Verma, 1963 ; Bhardwaja et al., 1979 ; Bohra et al., 1980). Ethnobotanical survey of these places has yielded interesting results, some of which are given in the present paper. During survey, Tape recorder was used as the language of many 'Tribal races' could not be understood well and got the conversation translated by some educated persons of the race, now residing in urban areas.