eChapters

ABSTRACT

Commercial propagation using tissue culture techniques started in seventies for orchids in USA. Since then, the science and technology of tissue culture have advanced particularly after the development of the most widely used medium by Murashighe and Skoog (1972). The science has led to the development of the fascinating area of gene transfer. Today, micropropagation protocols are available for almost all horticultural crops. But, there are certain grey areas where research need to be intensified to solve the problems confronting certain difficult to propagate species belonging to plantation and spice sectors. The major area that needs to be addressed is recalcitrance.

Abstract

The Himalaya is one of the youngest and the richest mountain ecosystems encompassed with a variety of species of both flora and fauna. Varying in climatic conditions coupled with altitudinal gradients and unique topography leads to the formation of different types of forests, which varies from tropical to the temperate and alpine to no timber line zone and snow-clad meadows. The present study aimed to investigate the potential of medicinal plants growing in valleys and mountains of district Doda to cure various ailments of the local inhabitants including animal health care. A total of 113 species belonging to 104 genera and 55 families of angiosperms, gymnosperms and cryptogams (lycophytes and ferns) were recorded and reviewed from published documents used for treatment of different diseases in the regions. Out of the total 113 species, 17 species were of trees, 14 species were shrubs, 78 types of herbaceous plants and 4 species of climbers. Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Rosaceae, Ranunculaceae, Polygonaceae, Solanaceae, Apiaceae, Pinaceae, Fabaceae and Berberidaceae were recorded as the dominant families of the study area. The data were collected while interacting with local people as they possess rich traditional knowledge regarding the use of different herbal plants and medicine.

ABSTRACT

Plants play an important role in human survival and contribute to sustainable development as they are the major source of different bioactive compounds such as taxol, digoxin, reserpine and vinblastin used directly as drug and medicines for human diseases. As plants are basic need and requirement for living, they are used as herbal remedy, and known to produce lead compounds for semi synthesis of higher activity or lower toxicity. Indian Himalaya regions are repository of more than 8,000 plants species and out of which 50% are endemic and unique due to thepresence of morphological and chemical structure of peculiar characters. Most of the plant used in Indian traditional system of medicines such as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha or Amchi described for different formulations and ethnomedicinal applications had distributional range restricted to the hills and the valleys of Himalayas. Hence, in this communication, an attempt has been made to present economic plants of Himalayan origin used as ethnomedicine, wild food plants as vegetables, herbal teas, homemade soups, wild salads, chutney, underground snacks, alcoholic drinks, nutrients as burnt powder and other human usages. Besides, this unique Himalayan plant has potential to be used as wild source for the development of new drugs and medicines which can sustain future to human survival and had the ability to produce medicine against deadly diseases. It is estimated that 80% of the world population uses traditional medicine made from herbal botanicals to cure disease and illness. It is of the record that 122 compounds obtained from ethnomedicinal plants is globally used as drugs. This indicates that tribal knowledge on plants and drug discovery cannot be separated, and newdrugsfor uniquedeadly diseases can be discovered only from ethnobotanical leads. More than 5,000 species reported from Indian Himalayas are of ethnobotanical values and they are used as medicine or wild food by different tribal communities. It can be concluded that Himalayan tribals are endowed with strong culture associated with botanicals and have age-old tradition with respect to the use of wild plants as food and medicine. Plants provide a real substitute for the primary health care systems in hills and valleys, and definitely going to serve as jewel for mankind in near future to come.

Morphological characteristics

Plant is terrestrial glabrous herb attends height of 20-25 cm. Tubers slightly flatten ed, palmately divided into 3-5, finger like lobes. Flower stalk upto 90 cm Long, erect, hollow, leafy throughout or the lower portion bear few sheathing scales. Leaves are 4-6, cauline, leaf blade oblong to linear lanceolate, 8.0-15.0cm x 1.5-3.0 cm in size, base sheathing, apex obtuse or acuminate.

Floral characteristics

Inflorescence is raceme, 5.0-15.0 cm long, crowded with many flowers. Flowers are purple and the bracts green, narrowly lance shaped, lower bract longer than the flowers, upper slightly shorter. Flowers are about 1.8 cm long, including the curved spur. Sepals and petals are nearly equal. Three of them form a hood and the two sides spread outwards. The lip is rounded and shallowly 3-lobed, spotted dark purple. Spur straight, cylindrical, nearly as long as the ovary; column very short; anther adnate to its face, cells diverging; pollinia 2, caudicles attached to 2 small globose, viscid glands enclosed in a minute pouch overhanging the broad, 2-lobed stigma.

Distribution

This attractive terrestrial orchid grows in damp pastures of Himalayas from Kashmir to Nepal at the altitude of 2500-5000 m MSL.

ABSTRACT

Saussurea costus (Falc.) Lipsch. is a perennial rhizomatous herbaceous plant, commonly called as kuth had a wide application in drug discovery programme and indigenously known for its medicinal usage in Indian system of medicine. Wide distribution of this species recorded from Himalayas and Indo-Mynamar hotspot biodiversity regions. This species is traditionally used for treatment of several seasonal diseases happen to occurs in hilly and mountaneous regions. It has been scientifically validated that this species possess various biological activities such as anti-microbial, anti-cancer, anti-arthritic, anti-convulsant, anti-oxidant, angiogenesis effect, hepatoprotective, gastro-protective, anti-obesity, and anti-inflammatory due to the presence of various bioactive principles such as costunolide, germacrene, lappadilactone, isodihydrocostunolide, cynaropicrin, linoleic acid, cyclocostunolide, alantolactone, isoalantolactone, sesquiterpene-saussureamines and several others in minor quantities. This species naturally grows in wild and mostly collected from the wild for its herbal usages, and this wild collection activities put S. costus under threatened and critically endangered categories, hence there is need for the development of agrotechnology for cultivation in large scale. This species has the potential components for developing new molecules in future for drug development. The present communication provides traditional usages, phytochemistry, therapeutic potentials, and future perspectives of S. costus. This baseline information provided in this article will be helpful in future for research to be carried forward in drug discovery programme using this plant species.

Social civilization of the Neolithic settlements of primitive human communities contributes substantial initiation of cultivation and an approach towards conservation of useful plant species for sustainable food habits. Several archaeological attestations confirm that Homo sapiens at the end of the Paleolithic period had knowledge on many useful plants derived from food gathering techniques. Growth of human populations beyond the size that hardly supports hunting and gathering for food materials may perhaps be the probable reason that forced the Neolithic primitive nomadic communities for settlement and emergence of crude forms of cultivation.

History

The history of organic farming is largely based upon the history of organic movement which came to fore as a reaction against the large-scale use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture. This movement can be traced back to England during 1920, when individuals started speaking against a variety of agricultural “innovation”.

One of the earlier pioneers of Organic Farming, Sir Albert Howard, is often referred to as the father of the modern “Organic Farming”. He began to work as a British botanist and served as an agriculture advisor in India, where he observed traditional Indian farming practices and came to respect them as superior to his conventional agriculture science. He documented and developed these organic farming practices/methods. His writings and notably the 1940 book, An Agricultural Testament, have influenced many scientists and farmers of the day.

In Germany Dr. Rudolf Steiner developed biodynamic agriculture which was probably the first comprehensive farming system. In America, the agronomist F.H. King had toured China, Korea and Japan in early 1990s, closely studied the fertilization, tillage and general farming practices being followed there. He published his findings in his book Farmers of Forty Centuries (1911). King probably did not impart any view himself as part of the movement, whether Organic Farming movement or by some other name. However, in the later years, some scientists within the organic farming movement thought, about what King had encountered in Asia as kindred approach.

Bioinformatics encompases the use of tools and techniques from three separate disciplines; molecular biology (the source of the data to be analyzed), computer science (supplies the hardware for running analysis and the networks to communicate the results), and the data analysis algorithms, which strictly define bioinformatics. So the list below incorporates events from these areas into a brief history of the field.

The homoeopathic system of medicine is one of the finest systems of cure available in the world. It achieves in totality the ideal laid down by its founder, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann:

"The highest ideal of cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of the health, or removal and annihilation oftlie disease in its whole extent, in the shortest, most reliable, and most harmless way, on easily compreltensible principles".

In homoeopathy, not a single drug is used without knowing its effect on healthy human beings. Hence there is no shooting in the dark. The system operates, by and large, without laboratory tests and other expensive means of diagnosis, which are being used when not needed and that too, unfortunately on patients who can hardly afford the expenses.

Cost wise, there is no medical system in tlie world, which is as inexpensive as homoeopathy. No patient who requires a speedy cure without side effects can ignore homoeopathy; no doctor who has nothing but the good of his patient at heart can overlook the utility and effectiveness of homoeopathy and no Government which has to balance its budget can afford not to use homoeopathy in hospitals and other institutions run for the health and care of the sick and thus it is the most cost effective treatment

The discovery of homoeopathic system of medicine makes a fascinating story.

The history of plant breeding is divided into 4 periods- knowledge of plant breeding before 1900, application of genetic principles (1900-1940), plant breeding research after 1940 and the recent developments in plant breeding. Emphasis is given on the land marks in genetic improvement of vegetable crops.

The major land marks  in genetics and breeding of crop plants are listed below.

Plant diseases are mentioned in some of the oldest books available (Homer, C – 1000 B.C. mentioned about the therapeutic properties of sulphur and in Old testament – 750 B.C.) and were feared as much as human diseases and war.

Nowhere in the plant kingdom do ecology, evolution, and human affairs come together as intricately as phenomena involving secondary metabolites. The importance of these compounds is apparent in some of the earliest annals of human history. For example, Papaver somniferum, the original source of morphine and codeine, was known to the Sumerians in 4000 B.C. as hul gil (joy-plant). These two alkaloids, so important in human affairs for many years, probably evolved within the genus Papaver originally as protective compounds against herbivores. As a testament to the importance of secondary metabolites,

P. somniferum was one the first plants to be cultivated for a reason other than its caloric or nutritive value. Sadly, its importance has only increased over the time. Organic chemists of the nineteenth century were among the first to recognize and study the diversity of plant secondary metabolites and to analyze them both in terms of structure and function. The German organic chemists developed techniques to acetylate morphine and produce what they claimed at the time to be a non addictive version of the drug. However, acetylation product of morphine trade name Heroin, was vastly more addictive. The economies of several developing nations in Asia still depend on the acetylation of this plant secondary metabolite, and tens of thousands of lives each year are destroyed by its commercial importance. In another striking example of profitable secondary metabolites, acetylation techniques to salicylic acid, derived originally from the bark of willows, Salix, to create aspirin. The modern appreciation of these secondary metabolites from ecological and evolutionary perspectives had its spread outside of the plant-insect ecology community. The overwhelming array of chemicals found in plants was more than simply by-products of primary metabolism that served as waste products for these organisms that lacked excretory systems.

Ecologists and evolutionary biologists soon took up the cudgels, and the past 60 years have seen the development, testing, refinement, and, in some cases, rejection of models that describe the ecology and evolution of these “secondary” substances. With the functional roles of these compounds broadly acknowledged, several challenges presented themselves to scientists interested in their ecological and evolutionary dynamics. Most obviously, the details of the processes underlying the interactions between each of these compounds and their target pest or pathogen became one of the most vibrant topics in ecological and physiological research.

Aromatic plants synthesise and preserve a variety of biochemical products, many of which are extractable and useful as chemical feed stocks or as raw materials for various scientific investigations. Many secondary metabolites of plants are commercially important and find use in a number of perfumery, flavouring and pharmaceutical compounds. The characteristic property of the plant is due to a variety of complex chemical compounds and hence aromatic plants are generally referred to as ‘natural bio-chemical factories’ or ‘chemical goldmines’.  Not all these natural chemicals can be synthesised in laboratory. Aromatic plants possess odorous volatile substances, which occur as essential oil, green exudate, balsam and oleoresin in one or more parts, namely, root, wood, stem, foliage, flower and fruit.  The term essential oil is concomitant to fragrance or perfumes because these fragrances are oily in nature and they represent the essence or active constituents of plants. They are called volatile or ethereal oils as they evaporate when exposed to air at ordinary temperatures.

Cashew has a long history as a useful tree but only in the current century, it became an important tropical horticultural crop. Small-scale local exploitation of cashew for its nuts and cashew apples is the pattern for more than 300 years in Asia and Africa. It was not until early years of 20^th century that international trade in cashew kernels began with first exports from India. Although with slow beginning, cashew became an important commercial crop in the last couple of years. In India, use of cashew apples and nuts was started by local people, and accounts from Africa are similar; making cashew wine/liquor possessing a common practice in both Asia and Africa (Johnson, 1973).

Cashew, an evergreen tree, produces both nuts and apples, has become a crop of importance owing to the highly valued kernel and wide adaptability to varying agro-climatic conditions. India is one of the largest producer, exporter and consumer of cashew in the world. Today, cashew has become a crop of high economy and has moved from a crop of waste lands to commercial crop, even in organized sector (Singh, 1998).

Hog-plum also known as wild mango (Spondias pinnata), is native to tropical Asia. A small, aromatic deciduous tree, up to 27m height and 2.5m in girth, with a clear bole of 16m, is found wild or cultivated almost throughout India, ascending up to an altitude of 1500m in the Himalayas; also found in the Andamans. Bark thick, aromatic, smooth, grey; leaves imparipinnate, 20-60cm long, leaflets 5-11, 22-28cm long, ovate-oblong, elliptic or elliptic-oblong, more or less oblique with mango-like smell; flowers whitish or greenish white, polygamous, in large, terminal panicles; fruits in terminal clusters of 10-15, drupes yellow-green or rich olive-green, mottled with yellow and black, smooth, ovoid, 4-7cm long; seeds 1-3, one being perfect, oblong-elliptic. Fruit is extremely sour, even when completely ripe.

Scientific name: Ocimum sanctum L.
Family: Lamiaceae
The ‘Sacred basil’ or ‘Holy basil’, Ocimum sanctum Linn. a biennial shrub belonging to the family Lamiaceae, is commonly cultivated in gardens. The Hindus of India worship the species and is traditionally grown in courtyards and temples. The aromatic plants belonging to genus Ocimum is popularly known by the name Basil. Basil was derived from Greek word “Basilica” which means royal plant. Among the Ocimum genus Ocimum basilicum is variously known as Sweet basil, French basil or Common basil. Ocimum sanctum is known as sacred basil or Holy basil which is a very sacred plant according to Hindu belief.
Origin and distribution
Ocimum Sanctum has broad distributions, covering the entire Indian subcontinent, ascending up to 1,800 m in the Himalayas and as far as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This plant occupies a wide range of habitats.
Botany
Botanically, Ocimum sanctum is an erect, herbaceous, and softly hairy plant that exhibits extensive branching. It typically grows to a height of 30-75 cm. The leaves are entire, serrate, and pubescent on both sides, while the flowers are characterized by their purplish or crimson hue, arranged in racemes. The fruits of Ocimum sanctum are sub-globose or broadly ellipsoid in shape, slightly compressed, nearly smooth, and exhibit a pale brown or reddish coloration with small black markings. It is a biennial or triennial shrub.

A kitchen garden/ nutrition garden is a vegetable garden where the vegetable crops are grown in the backyard of a house or any available space in compound or rooftop of the house, to meet the daily requirement of the family. All the members of the family are collectively involved in a kitchen garden.

For a balanced diet, 300 g of vegetables are to be included in our daily food. But on an average, Indians take only 160 g per day. Hence to fill up the gap, vegetable cultivation not only in farmers’ holdings but also in the home gardens is encouraged.

The homoeopathic materia medica consists of around 1000 drugs, the characteristics of which have been verified or proved. Homoeopathy is unique in that it uses no drug, which has not been proved. The proving has been done by administering pure medicines to healthy human beings and recording in minute detail the effects, mostly adverse, produced by such administration. The tests were conducted on men and women who were mostly medical people and students who were not sick. The drugs were administered in doses consisting of crude drugs or homoeopathic potencies. These volunteers were then asked to describe the effects of the drugs in their own words. These descriptions were noted down by the doctors conducting the experiments and were carefully recorded. Hundreds of thousands of such symptoms were recorded while proving the homoeopathic drugs and the materia medica forms a record of the best proving along with other data collected as a result of laboratory tests and experiments.

In paragraph 25 of the 'Organon of medicine', Dr.Samuel Hahnemann the founder of the system laid down the basis of homoeopathy in the following words: "Now, however, in all careful trials, pure experience, the sole and infallible oracle qi healing art, teaches us that medicine which, in its action on the healthy human body, has demonstrated its power of producing the greatest number of symptoms similar to those observable in the case of disease under treatment, does also, in doses of suitable potency and attenuation, rapidly, radically and permanently remove the totality of the symptoms of this morbid state, that is to say the whole disease present, and change it into health; and that all medicines cure, without exception, those diseases whose symptoms most nearly resemble their own, and leave none of them uncured."

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann laid down the fundamentals of the then new doctrine of homoeopathy in organon of medicine. As observed by him in the 'Introduction⁷ to this work, till then no one had ever taught this homoeopathic mode of cure, no one had carried it out in practice.

Dr. Hahnemann was of the view that the art of the medical practice "should. Rapidly and mildly, effect an unalloyed and permanent cure, and restore to health by means of the smallest doses of a few simple medicines carefully selected according to their proved effect, by the only therapeutic law comfortable to nature, that is Similia Similibus Curentur".

Homoeopathy is based on the following principles:

"The physicians high and only mission is to restore the sick to health, to cure, as it is termed"

The highest ideal of cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health or removal and annihilation of the disease in its whole extent in the shortest, most reliable and most harmless way on easily comprehensible principles.

Unprejudiced observer of a sick person takes note of nothing in every individuars disease except the changes in the health of the body and of the mind, which can be perceived externally by means of the senses. "All these perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease"

Homoeopathy system of medicine is the system of healing suited to all the young, and the old, the rich and the poor, the people in the developed as well as the underdeveloped countries and for persons in any place or climate. This is not to take away from the value and utility of the other prevalent systems of medicine. The aim of every science of healing is the relief of sick. Every system is successful in its own fashion. Homoeopathy too fights sickness and does so with remarkable results. Additionally the cost of diagnosis in this system is negligible because the diagnosis is by and large symptomatic. The medicine itself is inexpensive. Notable efficacy and low costs are the strong points of homoeopathic medicine. There are no toxic effects of the drugs, no side effects. The time taken for the medicine to show improvement is not long. Homoeopathic medicines are easy to store and have a long life.

Homoeopathy has been attacked again and again on the ground that the potencised drugs cannot be tested in a laboratory. But that way a number of phenomenon is still outside the pale of conventional science. However, laboratory tests have been going in many countries and certain phenomenon not acceptable to conventional scientific beliefs have been observed.

The homoeopathic system of medicine develops for its special use, the inner medicinal powers of the crude substances by means of a process peculiar to it and which has never been tried, whereby they only all become immeasurably and penetratingly efficacious and remedial. Even those that in the crude state give no evidence of the slightest medicinal power on the human body.

This remarkable change in the qualities of natural bodies develops the latent, hidden powers, which influence the body, change the well-being. This is affected by mechanical action upon their smallest particles by means of rubbing and shaking and through the addition of an indifferent substance, dry or fluid. This process is called dynamization; potencizing and the products are dynamizations or potencies in different degrees.