2 research outputs found
Commercially important medicinal plants of North East India and their current applications – A review
133-147North East (NE) India is one of the ‘biodiversity hotspots’ of the world supporting about 50% of India’s biodiversity. In
the sparse to dense forests across alpine to tropical climatic conditions, the NE region has a vast distribution of medicinal
plants. The present study has compiled and enlisted the wide range of medicinal plants used by different ethnic communities
along with the highly traded medicinal and endemic plant species of superior quality attributes in the region. The results are
derived from an extensive review of information published in different research papers including those in books, journals,
public domain documents of government agencies, NGOs and business and trade databases. The number of important
species used in traditional healthcare systems of the different sister states of NE India ranges from 400 to 952 and out of
these, the number of different commercially promising species ranges from 7 to 14 species. Thirty-seven species of
medicinal plants in NE India are identified to have importance in the national and international trade of medicinal plants and
products and most of these are harvested from the wild. Despite of rich heritage and large plant diversity, the herbal drugs
market of NE India has not grown at the pace observed the mainland India’s herbal drug trade. Poor infrastructure in terms
of quality control and quality assurance, GLP-compliant laboratories for herbal drugs, constraints of accessibility to the
region, widespread collection of the medicinal herbs from the wild coupled with lack of sustainable harvesting and package
of practices for domestic cultivation of medicinal herbs are issues need to be addressed in future for exploring maximum
benefit to the economy of the region from medicinal plant resources