Malyagiri hill ranges located on the south of Pallahara town of Angul district in the state of Odisha is endowed with rich flora and fauna. This area is rich with large no. of medicinal plants and plants of other socio-economic importance. The tribal people and people near by utilizing plant and plant products for medicinal and other purposes. The distribution, diversity, population structure and occurrence of plant species has been poorly understood by the previous workers. Keeping these facts in mind intensive floristic studies have been undertaken in the different regions. About four hundred medicinal plants have been collected and identified from different locations of this region .During the present investigation it is evident that large number of medicinal plants are found to be present in this region which are much useful for herbal drug industry. Some species are vulnerable, few are endangered, less are critically endangered in this region due to habitat loss. As such conservation and sustainable utilization of medicinal plants is an urgent need for the maintenance of ecological balance in this region.

Keywords: Threatened medicinal plants, Malyagiri Hill Ranges, status, conservation.

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M.K. Pradhan

Dept. of Botany, N.C. Autonomous College, Jajpur– 755001

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