Recent perspectives on impact of Ethnobotany in India: A review

Abstract

Medicinal and aromatic plants constitute most significant group of plants in the welfare of living beings. Most of these plants are found growing wild and collected by different ethnic and rural people of our country. They used them freely for the treatment of various human and animal ailments, on the basis of their ancestral knowledge and beliefs. They know medicinal usage of several wild plants growing nearby them for the sure cure of different diseases. Ethnobotany, the research field of science, has been widely used in documenting the indigenous knowledge of using plants and providing an inventory of useful plants from local ethnic people. Plants that are used as traditional herbal medicine in different countries are an important part of these studies. However, over-harvesting, degradation of medicinal plants, and loss of indigenous traditional knowledge from local communities are common problems in these resource areas. In this narrative review of literature, we aimed to describe and delineate about recent perspectives on role and impact of Ethnobotany in India.