Diversity and Utilization of Medicinal Flora of Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University Campus Rajouri Jammu and Kashmir, India

India is commonly called as ‘Botanical Garden’ of the world, owing to its wealth of herbal medicines. Medicinal plants constitute precious resources for mankind. Since times immemorial, plants have been put to medicinal use by traditional Herbalists/Hakims, Vaidays, Ayurvedic practitioners and common man. Also, the health care obtained by utilizing plants, plant parts or plant compounds has always been held in high esteem by folk medicine. Medicinal plants have been unique sources of medicines and constitute the most common human use of biodiversity (Hamilton, 2004).
       
India has one of the world’s richest medicinal plant heritage. In India, medicinal plants comprise approximately 8000 species and account for around 50% of all higher flowering plant species. In terms of volume and value of medicinal plants exported, it is after only China which tops the list of exporting countries (Singh, 2001). Also, in India there is a substantial volume of internal trade in medicinal plants. There are about 7800 medicinal drug-manufacturing units in India consuming about 2000 tonnes of herbs annually (Singh, 2001). It has been estimated that 14-28% of higher plant species are used medicinally, whereas 15% of all angiosperms have been investigated chemically and 74% of pharmaceutically active plant derived components were discovered after following the ethno- medicinal use of the plant.
       
District Rajouri, located in south-western side of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India is known for its economically valued plants and their products, such as medicine, food, fodder, fibre etc. Owing to its rich and unique floristic diversity, a good proportion of plants are used as medicine in one or the other form. The ethnic use of these herbs as medicine has probably been the only means of curing and protecting the human population from various diseases. Although a number of ethno-botanical studies have been carried out on the medicinal plants in Indian Himalayan region in general and Rajouri in particular, these studies were mainly focused on the enumeration of medicinal plants and were conducted on scattered basis on different ethnic groups. In spite of their availability and utilization by a large proportion by the middle hill dweller, no concerted effort has been made for the sustainable development of this renewable natural resource (Samin et al., 2008).
       
Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University has been established in the year 2002. The University is located at the foothills of the great Himalayan Pir Panjal range. The University campus is located at a distance of approximately 8 km from the main city Rajouri. The region in which the university is located has rich geographic, climatic and cultural diversity. The climate varies from sub-tropical to sub-temperate type. The snow-capped peaks of the mighty Himalaya, rich biodiversity and valuable agri-diversity make entire Rajouri a nature Lover’s Paradise. Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University campus has ample and rich diversity of plant species. The University campus is also very rich in medicinal wealth. Centre of Biodiversity Studies (CBS), BGSBU has herbal garden for propagation and conservation of germplasm of medicinal and aromatic plants. However, fewer efforts have been undertaken to explore and document the medicinal values and decipher the benefits from them. Therefore, taking into consideration the significance and non-availability of any published account on the subject, an attempt was made to;
 
I.      Assess the diversity and use of medicinal plants and
II.     Identify the nativity and use pattern of medicinal plants present in BGSBU Campus.
 
Study area
 
Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University is located in the district Rajouri. The district covers an area of about 2,630km² and lies between 33°. 23' N 74°.18' E and 33°.38' N 47°.30' E. The district is over shadowed by Poonch in north, Jammu lies at its feet in south, Reasi in its east and is occupied by Kashmir in its west. The University campus exhibits marvellous altitudinal, topographic and edaphic diversity. Climate and vegetation of the area is sub-tropical to sub-temperate type. The area of the campus is largely hilly and exhibits rich diversity of flora and fauna.
 
The vegetation of the campus mainly comprises of trees: Pinus roxburghii, Quercus leucotricophora, Melia azedarach, Olea ferruginea, Salix sp. etc.; shrubs: Dodonaea viscosa, Berberis lycium, Rubus ellipticus etc and herbs: Cynodon dactylon, Mentha longifolia, Cannabis sativa, Vicia sativa etc.

(a) Classification
 
Depending upon the parts used for medicine, the medicinal plants can be grouped in following categories:
 
i. Plants with underground parts
 
The underground parts of some plants form an important source of medicine used mostly by some tribal and manufacturing medicinal companies. The common examples of such plants are Adiantum capillus-veneris, Berginia ciliata, Valeriana wallichii, Taraxacum officinale and Asparagus racemosus.
 
ii. Plants with medicinal leaves
 
Most of the plants are medicinally important for their leaves. The species belonging to this category are: Aloe vera, Artemesia scoparia, Ajuga reptans, Berginia ciliata, Buddleja asiatica, Conyza canadensis, Callistemon citrinus, Calotropis procera, Catharanthu sroseus, Cannabis sativa, Debregea siasalicifolia, Dodonaea viscosa, Ginkgo biloba, Hercleum candicans, Justicia adhatoda, Cassia fistula, Melia azedarach, Mentha longifolia, Oxalis corniculata, Olea ferruginea, Plantago lanceolata, Rumex nepalensis, Reinwardtia indica, Taraxacum officinale, Sonchus arvensis, Trifolium pratense, Thalictrum foliolosum, Vitex negundo and Withania somnifera.
 
iii. Plants with medicinal flowers
 
Few species of the plants are known to be important in having medicinal flowers and inflorescences. This category includes the species like Viola canascens, Punica granatum and Oenothera lamarkiana.
 
iv. Plants with medicinal fruits
 
Some of the plant species were recorded whose fruits are medicinally important. This category includes the species like Berberis lycium, Embilica officinalis, Ficus racemosa, Ficus palmata, Morus alba, Punica granatum, Rubus ellipticus, Vicia sativa, Zanthoxylum aromatum and Zizipusm auritiana.
 
v. Other medicinal plant types
 
This category includes the plants with bark and resin with medicinal properties. The common examples of this category are: Euphorbia heliscopia with latex and Zanthoxylum aromatum with bark having medicinal properties.
 
(b) Diversity
 
The study recorded 46 species, 44 genera belonging to 34 families distributed within different life forms i.e. shrubs (15 species), trees (10 species) and herbs (21 species). Family wise distribution indicated that Asteraceae is the dominant family with 04 species followed by Moraceae, Lamiaceae and Fabaceae with 03 species each and Apocyanaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Lilliaceae with 2 species each and the rest of the families with only 1 species (Table 1-4).
 

 




 

 
 
(c) Family wise distribution
 
Family-wise distribution reveals that out of the total 46 species, family Asteraceae represents the maximum distribution (4 species) followed by Moraceae, Lamiaceae and Fabaceae (3 species each), Liliaceae, Apocyanaceae and Euphorbiaceae (2 species each). The other families like Meliaceae, Violaceae, Berberidaceae, Saxifragaceae, Cannabaceae, Punicaceaeetc are represented by only one species each (Table 1-4; Fig 1).
 

 
(d) Nativity
 
Out of the total (46) collected species; more than 50% are non-native, while the rest are native to Himalayan region (Table 1-4). Some of the examples of native species are Asparagus racemosus, Berginia ciliata, Conyza canadensis, Cannabis sativa etc. The examples of some non-native species are Aloe vera, Dodonaea viscosa, Ginkgo biloba, Thalictrum foliolosum etc.
 
(d) Utilization pattern
 
The utilization pattern of the species indicated that leaves of 29 species, underground parts of 05 species, whole plants of 06 species, flowers of 03 species, fruits of 08 species and other parts like latex of 01 species were utilized (Fig 2). Among the medicinal part used, leaves contribute for the maximum portion with 29 species (63%) followed by 09 species as fruits (19%), 03 species as flower (6.5%), 05 species as underground parts (10.8%), 01 specie as latex (1%) and 01 specie as bark (1%) (Table 5-12).