DOI: 10.36347/sajb.2015.v03i08.004

Pages: 656-667

The present study is aimed to carry out a baseline survey to evaluate the status, structure, composition, diversity and utilization of home garden (HG) plants in two villages located one in rural area (Arumanalloor) near Nagercoil and another one (Konam) in town municipality of Nagercoil, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India, and to understand the impact of socio-economic conditions of households on home garden structure. Questionnaire was prepared to collect information from the households (respondents) of 128 home gardens (of which 66 were rural HGs and 62 were urban HGs), categorized into –hutted, tiled, terraced, storied, fenced and non-fenced, in addition to enumerate the available plants. The overall HG area surveyed in both rural and urban HGs was 17209.88m2 (1.72ha.) with an average HG area of 134.45m2 (0.013ha) and it is higher in rural (183.03m2) as compared to urban (82.74m2) HG area. The number of species recorded in the HGs was 89 species belongs to 45 families comprises 80 genus. The range of species recorded overall in the HGs surveyed was 5-35 with an average of 13.86species/HG. Five vertical strata –emergent (>10m), canopy (10-15m), understory (5-10m), shrubs (1-5m) and herbs (<1m), were identified in the HGs with maximum percentage (31.46%) of herbs among the life form groups. In case of plant utilization pattern –edible, medicinal, vegetable, ornamental and multipurpose uses were recorded from the HG respondents with an overall maximum (38.20%) use of ornamental plants. This study indicates the need for creating awareness among the households about the importance of HG plants for their day-to-day life and its conservation.