ETHNO MEDICINAL STUDY OF THREATENED PLANTS OF SONITPUR DISTRICT IN ASSAM, NORTH EAST INDIA

Abstract

Assam is endowed with a rich wealth of medicinal plants. It has the richest reservoir of plant diversity of India and is one of the hot diversity spots of the world supporting about 50% of India’s biodiversity. Traditional medical practice has been recognized by the World health Organization (WHO) as a building block of primary healthcare. Assam has a rich traditional knowledge of folk medicinal practices. But rapid fragmentation of natural habitats and unrestricted exploitation coupled with limited cultivation and insufficient attempts for its replacement has decreased this knowledge day by day.   As a result, this wild stock of the medicinal plant species has been markedly depleted with increasing the risk of loosing their genetic diversity and the medicinal quality of these plants remains unknown.

Many species are extinct or on the verge of extinction before they are known for their scientific uses. In order to categorize and update the list of threatened species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has recognized the categories on the basis of geographical range, populations and fragmentation of populations.

The present study was carried out in Sonitpur district of Assam for the documentation of ethnomedicinal importance of such threatened plants species.