Mycoflora Associated with five commonly used Medicinal Plants of Karaikal (U.T. of Puducherry)

Medicinal plants are the precious wealth for healthy and happy society; all the plants in natural ecosystem appear to be symbiotic with fungal endophytes. This highly diverse group of fungi can have profound impacts on plant communities through increasing fitness by conferring stress tolerance or decreasing fitness by altering resource allocation. Thus the present work has been carried out to exp lore their activit ies against some of the ethno medicina lly important plants in Karaikal. In view of importance of these fungi (as potential bio control agents, source of bioactive compounds and in plant protection) it was considered worthwhile to study fungal associates of some of ethno medicinal p lants. Five medicinal plants belonging to different families have observed, fungi have been isolated from the different parts of the medicinal plants.