Thanks for the reply.

The problem with promoters of sidhhaa medicine in Singapore is that they
rattle off names of plants which the uninitiated are not familiar. Even the
siddha vaithiar over Oli 96.8 radio is prone to this.

To popularise siddha medicine there must be websites or books illustrated
with photos that identify the plants with Tamil names. I found one book
which had some black and white pictures but they were pathetic. Another
Tamil book had lengthy articles on the properties of herbal plants. It also
described how the plants would look. But again without accompanying
photograph the descriptions could fit any plant under the sun.

The siddha medicine advocators should remember that the current generation
of Tamils have long distanced themselves from traditional herbal medicine
and have nearly forgotten them. But thanks to the media, there is now a
revived interest among them in siddha medicine. To sustain their interest
detailed information should be made available. For example, I may come
across a valuable plant while out jogging or in a HDB car park but just
ignore it because of my ignorance. Hindu temples could educate the people
by growing these plants in their premises. Some Chinese temples are already
doing it.


"Country Pumpkin" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 22:08:11 +0800, "Ravee"
wrote:

This article is very informative. However, how to identify the plants. Is
there any website which has pictures of these plants?

The are many sites with botanical images - if you do a web search for
' plant images' at least a 100 sites will fall each having at least a
thousand pictures. You can try:

http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/gallery.htm
http://www.anbg.gov.au/images/photo_cd/

The plant images are sorted by families so you can do a search within
the site for the genera name, say Eclipta.

Sites specific to Siddha plants and Singapore plants, I am afraid not
many. And of these, they have about 10 plants each, and the pictures
may not be good enough to help you identify the real ones. You can
try:

http://www.nparks.gov.sg/plants/tre/pla-tre-als.shtml
http://www.campo-research.com/campo/f-products.html

There are local books with pictures - you can browse them at the MPH
bookstores or the National Library:

Medicinal Plants of Singapore - Singapore Science Centre
Horticultural Shrubs of Singapore - Singapore Science Centre

Trees of Singapore - National Parks board
Plants of Singapore - National Parks board

There are other books on Tropical plants - cultivated and wild, you
can see at the MPH.

R. Sabapathy

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