Asian Journal of Plant Sciences1682-39741812-5697Asian Network for Scientific Information10.3923/ajps.2003.719.730K. Pradheep S. Michael Gomez A. Kalamani 9200329For roughly a million years, man, by trial and error screened some plant materials for catering his needs. Now in the era of science and technology also, we accept only a handful, mostly of ancient lineage ones as major crops. There has been hardly single food crop domesticated in modern times. This led to less diversity in human diets in turn paved way for malnutrition. It is surprising to see that these nutritional ailments occur in the zones where there plenty of wild edible fruits and leafy greens with rich nutritive potential are available. So frankly speaking, we havent given a chance for these plants to serve their best to mankind. These underutilized plants apart from their rich nutritive potential, provide variety to our diets, can be best grown in marginal lands, helps in diversification of Agriculture, ultimately leads to diversified income to farmers. Truly speaking, there exists very little basic difference between cultivated plants and weeds except that weeds are unwanted and cultivated plants are wanted. It is in our hands that whether to treat weeds as unwanted ones or crops. If research efforts are diverted to unearth the potential of these plants, one day or other day they will definitely become crop, may supersede todays well-known crops and thereby aids in broadening the horizons of horticulture. Some possible examples from Tamil Nadu, India flora are focused.]]>Armitage, A.M.,1986211921Arora, R.K. and A. Pandey,1996pp: 294pp: 294Arora, R.K. and E.R. Nayar.19841984Babu, C.R. A. Joshi and N. Sardesai,1993435559Bedgley, M. and J.A. Gardner,19891989Bhatarcharjee, S.K.,198024126133De Wet, J.M.J. and J.R. Harlan,19751999107Flowry, C.A.,198396178180Fritz, D.,19891989pp: 193201Gopalan, C.B.V., R. Sastri and S.C. Bala Subramanian,1999Klougart, A.,1987205310 Krishnamurthy, S.,1955Ladin,19856143143Liener, I.E.,1980Mainkhuri, R.K., R.L. Semwal, K.S. Rao, S. Nautiyal and K.G. Saxena,2000Cleome viscosa: Capparidaceae: A weed or cash crop?]]>54150154Myers, N.,1983Parmer, C. and M.K. Kaushal,1983Sundararaj, D.D. and G. Balasubramaniyam,1959Uphof, J.C.H.,1968Vavilov, N.I.,1951131364Zeven, A.C. and J.M.J. de Wet,1982pp: 263pp: 263Chen, N.,19991999pp: 86-94pp: 86-94CSIR,1948-1992Vol. I-9,Eyzaguirre, P., S. Padulosi and T. Hodgkin,19991999pp: 9-11pp: 9-11Gamble, J.S.,1957Harborne, J.B.,1996Hawkes, J.G.,19691969pp: 17-19pp: 17-19Higgs, E.S. and M.R. Jarman,19721972Khader, M.A.J.B.M. and N. Kumar,19931993Khoshoo, T.N.,19931993pp: 5-35pp: 5-35MSSRF,1994MSSRF,2001Naik, K.C.,1948Nangju, D.,19991999pp: 16-18pp: 16-18Tiwari, D.N.,1994Tsou, S.C.S.,19991999pp: 16-18pp: 16-18Viet Meyer, N.,19901990pp: 18-22pp: 18-22