Uses of trees as medicine by the ethnic communities of Arunachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Arunachal Pradesh, the largest state of North East India has been considered as one of the biodiversity ‘Hotspot’ areas in the world. The original inhabitants of Arunachal Pradesh are tribal people, belonging to 26 major tribes and 110 sub-tribes. The ethnic communities of the state have their own rich traditional knowledge in the use of various tree species for treatment of different diseases with a practically applied aspect of knowledge acquired through close natural observation. They are store houses of indigenous knowledge which is unexplored and unrecorded. The present paper deals with the effectiveness of folk medicine for curative, remedial and medicinal uses of 64 tree species under 48 genera and 30 families providing detail account on the plants, their vernacular name, scientific name, plants parts and their uses.\r\r\t \r\r\tKey words: Trees, medicine, ethnic community, Arunachal, India.