Edible and medicinal plants from sand dunes of eastern coastal areas

Edible and wild medicinal plants are given utmost importance considering the food and medicine problems in the developing countries of the world. Documentation of wild food plants and therapeutic systems using medicinal plants is becoming very important as the current scenario for documentation of ethnobotany knowledge on therapeutic systems is diminishing in many parts of the world and there is a difference in the availability and use, availability of plants in different regions of the world. The diversity of ecological variation can create adaptability for the plants growing in that particular region. It is, therefore, necessary to document the knowledge of wild edible plants and medicinal plants of different regions, especially those that have a unique ecology. Keeping the importance of coastal ecology, an attempt has been made to enumerate the plants used as food and medicines from sand dunes of eastern coastal areas of Odisha, India. The present study reveals about 40 plants in coastal sand dune ecology that have food as well as medicinal values. This documentation of wild food and medicinal plants will be helpful for the future development of drugs