Wild Fruits of Uttarakhand (India): Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Uses

Fruit is a ripened ovary of flower and may either fleshy or nut. Fruits are generally cultivated as well as wild, cultivated fruits are grown by farmers for economical benefits while wild fruits are occurring only in their natural environment. As population increases the areas of plantation and forest used for human welfare, number of plants decreases so wild plants lost their identity and decrease in their number. Wild fruiting plants are major in numbers in that place which are not affected by human interaction due to their difficult geography and climatic conditions which is not suitable for human survival [1]. Surveyed the ethnobotanical exploration, identification, concerns and future potentialities of the wild edible plants of Srinagar and Alaknanda valley of Garhwal Himalaya and recorded total 55 plant species belonging to 35 families. The ethnobotanical survey of wild edible fruits from Kolhapur district was carried out by [2]. [3] Examined the status and distribution pattern of medicinal plants in Wildlife Institute of Dehradun, Uttarakhand and recorded 605 plants belonging to 94 families. The use of plant species of the Himalaya as food and medicine has been known for a long time and about 1748 economically important plants have been reported from Indian Himalaya [4]. The unique diversity of such important plants in the region is manifested by the presence of a number of native (31%), endemic (13.5%) and threatened (14%) of total red data book species of Indian Himalayan region [5].