Taboos of certain trees and plants : It is considered bad to pluck flowers in afternoon. In Uttar Pradesh even folk songs for children prohibits the cutting of peepal (Ficus religiosa Linn.), banyan (Ficus bengalensis Linn.) and sandal (Santalum album Linn.) trees . In Kumoan , cutting of timber after sunset is believed to attract illness of children (Anonymous, 1959) .
Totems based on trees and flowers : Childless women do a number of totems for having a son . In Bhojpur, the offering of sesame (Sesamum indica Linn.), rice (Oryza sativa Linn.) etc to the sun near a river bank is a totem (Upadhyaya, 1960).
Ethnobotany in totality is virtually, a new field of research and if this field is investigated thoroughly and systematically, it will yield results of great value to the ethnologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, plant geographers, ethnobotanists, botanists, linguists and ultimately to phytochemists and pharmacologists.
The term “ethnobotany” has often been considered synonmymous with “traditional medicine” or with “economic botany”. The scope, concepts and implications of ethnobotany have been expanding at a very fast rate (Schultes 1962, Jain, 1967, 1987 A & B).
CASSIA OCCIDENTALIS LINN.
Botanical name:- Cassia occidentalis Linn.
Common name in Hindi :- Badikanodi , Chakunda , Kasonda
Common name in English:- Coffee - senna , Foetid Cassia , Negro coffee , Rubbish Cassia, Stinking – weed .
Common name in Sanskrit:- Kasamarda .
Common name in Rajasthan:- Chakundra , Talka .
Morphology of the plant
Jatropha curcas grows wild in Udaipur division in Rajasthan. Chattisgarh state and several other nothern states of India Under the micromission programme of Department of Biotechnology, Govt of India under chairmanship of Professor A.K. Sharma and Dr Renu Swarup, Director, and Dr Meenakshi Munshi Senior scientific officer work is being carried out in different states of the country regarding selection of eltie mateiral, its propagation, yield evaluation, genetic characterisation and developing proper agrotechnology.
Skin ailments: Paste of fresh rhizome of Curcuma domestica Valeton and mature fresh leaves of Calotropis procera (Ait.) R. Br. is boiled in oil of Brassica juncea (L.) Czern and Coss. till water part is evaporated. This medicated oil is applied on affected part twice a day.
There are several traditional uses which are in need to be tested on medical grounds before making their use widespread. Plesae use all medicines from Calotropis procera for topical or external applications and avoid any contact to eyees as its latex is highly damaging to the eyes. The author only presents here what is written already and does not endorse its use without scientifically testing it.
There is an increasing interest concerning the plant Calotropis procera due to innumerous relevant biological activi¬ties found in its vegetative tissues. It is easy to obtain Calotropis procera latex where the plant is found because of its extraor¬dinary endogenous production. It would not be surprising Calotropis procera to produce more latex than Hevea brasiliensis in a comparative basis. Twenty milliliters of latex can be collected within 12 min. This certainly contributed to the exploitation of the latex for curative purposes. The plant seems to be deeply inserted in folk medicine in India. In Brazil poor¬est people use the crude latex mainly to combat skin infections by topic application.
Feeling no pain: plants were first to let it happen
Gene, gene expression, gene silencing and RNAi 
