Himalayan Aromatic Medicinal Plants: A Review of their Ethnopharmacology, Volatile Phytochemistry, and Biological Activities

Rakesh K Joshi; Prabodh Satyal; Wiliam N Setzer

doi:10.3390/medicines3010006

Himalayan Aromatic Medicinal Plants: A Review of their Ethnopharmacology, Volatile Phytochemistry, and Biological Activities

Medicines (Basel). 2016 Feb 19;3(1):6. doi: 10.3390/medicines3010006.

Authors

Rakesh K Joshi¹, Prabodh Satyal², Wiliam N Setzer³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Education, Government of Uttrakhand, Nainital 263001, India. raakeshjoshi@rediffmail.com.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA. prabodhsatyal@gmail.com.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA. wsetzer@chemistry.uah.edu.

Abstract

Aromatic plants have played key roles in the lives of tribal peoples living in the Himalaya by providing products for both food and medicine. This review presents a summary of aromatic medicinal plants from the Indian Himalaya, Nepal, and Bhutan, focusing on plant species for which volatile compositions have been described. The review summarizes 116 aromatic plant species distributed over 26 families.

Keywords: Bhutan; Himachal Pradesh; Jammu and Kashmir; Nepal; Sikkim; Uttarakhand; essential oils.

Publication types

Review