Uttarakhand: A hotspot of biodiversity

Abstract

There are 34 biodiversity hotspots in the world, which include Indian Himalayan Region (Samant et al., 1998). Uttarakhand, a state crossed by the Himalayas is enriched with diverse flora and fauna. Ever since times of Ramayana, it is considered as a great reservoir of rare and endangered species that have the power to heal various diseases. There are 30 rivers that have either originated or cross Uttarakhand. The local flora include plants like Urtica parviflora, Premna barbata, Oroxylum indicum, Meizotropis pellita and Prunella vulgaris, etc. These plants have potential to treat a broad spectrum of diseases ranging from a common disease like headache to deadly disease like cancer, but unfortunately, there are many more to be explored for their use in the betterment of medicine and healthcare. Here, in this editorial, Oroxylum indicum: A wonderful gift of nature Oroxylum indicum commonly known as Shyonaka belongs to family Bignoniaceae and is of great economic and medicinal importance. Family Bignoniaceae has about 112 genera and 725 species of trees and shrubs (Joshi et al., 2013). This plant is one of the ten herbs used in dashmularishta, an ayurvedi medicine for females useful in recuperation from post-delivery weakness. It contains a number of secondary metabolites like flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids, etc. Bioactive flavonoids such as chrysin, baicalein and oroxylin-A isolated from different parts of this plant can be used as analgesic, antitussive, antiinflammatory, hepatoprotective and suppressive agent (Chen et al., 2002). some plants on which the work has been done in my lab are discussed. The short description of these plants is given below.