1. Latitude/Longit ude of village entrance
Species Diversity of Plants in Home Gardens in selected Orang Asli villages in Johor By
Nur Shahidah Mohammad, Pozi Milow, Ong Hean Chooi
Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur
ABSTRACT
Floristic surveys were conducted on home gardens of three Orang Asli villages in Johor namely Kampung Selai, Kampung Kemidak, and Kampung Sentosa. A total of 101 of plant species were identified from Kampung Selai, whereas 87 and 81 species of plants were identified from Kampung Kemidak and Kampung Sentosa respectively. The species which were most common to home gardens in Kampung Selai, Kampung Kemidak and Kampung Sentosa, Cocus nucifera, Piper nigrum, and Musa sp. respectively. The villagers use these plants for food, medicine, ornament, handicraft, utensils, spiritual rites, income, and fish poison.
INTRODUCTION
RESULTS
This study was conducted on three Orang Asli villages in the state of Johor in December The villages are Kampung Orang Asli Selai, Kampung Orang Asli Kemidak and Kampung Orang Asli Sentosa. The Orang Asli of the three villages belongs to the Jakun tribe. The latitude and the longitude will be presented in the Table 1 respectively. Average rainfall on the month this study done is about 175mm. Most of the houses in this village area were modernized with being built using bricks, sawn planks and sawn wood.
Table 1 :List of Orang Asli village selected.
A total of 144 species of plant were encountered in the three villages studied. (Graph 1)
Most of the species found in one village only (42%) , 24% is in two villages and 34% can be found in all the home gardens. (Figure 1)
Six types of plant uses were identified. (Figure 2)
Three most common plants in: (Graph 2)
Kg Selai are Cocos nucifera, Carica papaya, Ipomoea batatas;
Kg Kemidak are Piper nigrum, Cocus nucifera, Areca catechu;
Kg Sentosa are Musa sp., Capsicum annuum, Mimosa pudica.
Graph 1: Total number of species of plant grown or tended in home gardens in Kg Sentosa, Kg Kemidak, and Kg Selai
Name of
Villages
Tribe
Latitude/Longit ude of village entrance
Kampung Orang Asli Selai
Jakun
2o 23’158 N
103o15’ 653 E
Kampung Orang Asli Kemidak
2o 22’ 818 N
102o15’ 002 E
Kampung Orang Asli Sentosa Bt 29,
2o 15’ 425N
103o 49’ 858 E
Graph 2: Three most common species of plants grown or tended in Kg Selai, Kg Kemidak, and Kg Sentosa
Figure 1: Proportion of total number of species of plants (in percentage) common to all villages, common to two of the villages, and unique to a village.
DISCUSSION
Food
(54%)
Ornamental
(27%)
Medicine (13%)
Spiritual rites
Fish poisoning
Utensils
Other uses (6%)
The trend species occurrence in all the home gardens is similar to that of home gardens in Pahang as recorded by Milow et al. (2010).
The total number of plant species of the three villages is far greater than the total number of thirteen villages as recorded by Milow et al. (2010).
This indicates that home gardens of the three villages are potentially useful for the conservation of plant.
Floristic surveys on home gardens have to be extended to more villages in order to obtain a more accurate trend in term of their plant diversity.
METHODOLOGY
About half of the total number of home gardens in each village was surveyed. Information was gathered through inspection of home gardens and through semi-structured interviews with the owners or caretakers of home gardens. Plant identification was done through photographs taken during the survey of home gardens and comparing them with references and literatures on plant taxonomy.
acknowledgement
Figure 2 : Proportion of total number of species of plants (in percentage) grown or tended in home gardens in Kg Selai, Kg Kemidak, and Kg Sentosa according to plant use.
We are thankful to the University of Malaya for providing RG044/09SUS to support this project. Special thanks to all home garden owners have provided us with invaluable information.
References : Milow P., Ramli M.R., and Ong H.C. (2010). Prelimenary Survey on Plants Home Gardens in Pahang. J Biodiversity 1(1) : 19-25