Highly useful medicinal plants of Patanjali Herbal Garden, Haridwar, Uttarakhand and special emphasis on their conservation

The present paper deals with the study of highly useful medicinal plants of Patanjali Herbal Garden, Haridwar, Uttarakhand. It contains 974 species belonging to 479 genera and 153 families and the dominating species belonged to genus Euphorbia L. (19 plant species) and Ficus Tourn. ex L. (15 plant species). Out of 974 species, 572 plant species were marked as highly medicinal on the basis of their medicinal properties. Medicinally most important families with high species diversity were Fabaceae with 45 plant species followed by Euphorbiaceae (27), Apocynaceae (24), Moraceae (22), Poaceae (20), Lamiaceae (19), Malvaceae (17), Rubiaceae and Solanaceae (16), Asteraceae (13) and Zingiberaceae (12). Among plant parts root, stem, bark, leaves, oil, resin, latex, flowers, fruits and seeds are mainly used from trees, shrubs and climbers, respectively. However, the whole plant of small herbs, grasses and fronds and rhizomes of ferns are used. Various species of trees, shrubs, herbs, climbers and ferns are used for the treatment of many diseases like fever, diarrhoea, constipation, ulcers, inflammation, diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, different types of cancers, skin problems, migraine, wounds, insects biting, etc. For the first time all the medicinal plants are represented by their Vedic nomenclature. The conservation efforts and cultivation practices have also been discussed in the review.