Despite decades of intense research, malaria remains a deadly worldwide disease. Resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to chemical treatment still remains important. Efforts are now being directed towards the discovery and development of new chemically diverse anti-malarial agents. In the course of the search for new antimalarial compounds, a study of plants traditionally used against malaria by the people inhabiting the forests located near Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India was made, which permitted the identification of 34 plants currently used. Among these, 27 plants were selected for testing for antiplasmodial activity aimed at identifying the most effective plants for further research. Also, their activities were compared with 27 randomly collected plant species in order to asess the value of an ethno-medical approach.