1 Introduction

The mountain ecosystems are very vulnerable due to their ecologically fragile, tectonically and seismically active, and geologically sensitive. These ecosystems provide key ecosystem services to the society. The mountains cover about 24% of the total earth’s area in which nearly 10% of livelihoods rely on those depending on mountainous resources [1, 2]. The Himalaya, known as the “King of the Mountains”, is the world’s youngest and tallest mountain system which is a major biodiversity hotspot of the world [2]. It varies with their elevations, but the biodiversity also varies due to changes in altitude. The Garhwal Himalaya is an integral part of the Himalayan mountain system, with social, ecological, and physiographic similarities which are administratively coming under the Garhwal Division of Uttarakhand. The Garhwal division that has the Garhwal Himalaya includes seven districts named Dehradun, Haridwar, Uttarkashi, Tehri, Pauri, Rudraprayag, and Chamoli. In this Himalayan region, the peoples rely upon up to the range of 3300 m. Historically, in early Hindu scriptures, the Garhwal Himalaya is mentioned as “Kedarkhand”. This region has been inhabited since prehistoric times, as evidenced by ancient rock art, rock shelters, paleolithic stone tools, and megaliths. In the area, there are also archaeological artifacts that point to the existence of early Vedic rituals. This region is home to India’s most famous Hindu pilgrimages, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri, also known as ‘Chota Char Dham’ (little four abodes). It is important for its rich biodiversity, forest composition, species richness, diversity pattern, and spatial or temporal distribution [3,4,5] which is also mentioned in ancient literature like Charak Samhita and Susruta Samhita. Even since the Ramayan era, this area is considered a great reservoir of rare and endangered species that have great healing power [6]. It has a wide range of altitudinal variations which affect the plant chemicals and soil properties. Nature has been a source of medicinal treatments for thousands of years. About 80% of the world’s population in developing countries uses traditional medicines based on forest/plant products [7,8,9], which is more pronounced in developing countries use traditional medicines based on forest products [10, 11]. Forests or vegetational areas are important repositories of terrestrial biodiversity and play a key role in influencing socio-ecological and cultural attributes of human ecology including livelihood activities of traditional societies living as well as associated with these forests [12,13,14]. In the highly dissected landscape of Himalaya, bioclimatic conditions change rapidly and could vary within short distances, resulting in a pronounced heterogeneity of soils and their physical, chemical [15, 16], and biological characteristics [17, 18]. This could directly affect the vegetation types and their functional traits [19, 20]. The change in the plant’s active constituents mainly varies with the climate as the average temperature, amount of sunlight, nutrients, water, etc. varies with altitudinal gradients which affect soil health and organic matter. At high altitudes, the plants feel cold stress that directly links with their phytochemicals. Similarly, the soil microbial count is very less at high altitudes due to cold stress [21]. Due to its high biodiversity and species richness, most of the plants of this region are directly linked with the local inhabitants who utilized them as part of their daily practice. On this basis, the current study was focused on the plants that have been present throughout the Garhwal Himalaya at various altitudinal ranges which are commonly utilized by the natives.

2 Materials and methods

The present study is carried out in Garhwal Himalaya (Fig. 1) during the month of October 2022. A total of ten sites were designed with the help of previous literature and Google tools (Google Map, Google Earth) (Table 1, Fig. 2). The plant information was collected from the native peoples using semi-structured questionnaires/interviews [8, 10, 11, 22] (Parihaar et al. ; Vibhuti et al.) where 3–5 informants from each site. The plants were collected as per the informant’s discussions from each site for herbarium preparation which was deposited in Patanjali Research Foundation Herbarium with the acronym PRFH. The huge sample for each plant was collected in large polybags which are deposited in the analytical laboratory for phytochemical profiling. The soil samples from each site were collected in triplicates followed by soil temperature using a soil thermometer from each site. The sampling points were selected at each site, thereafter samples were collected from up to 15 cm soil depth and the required amount of soil sample was taken (Fig. 3). The soil was collected for its soil microbial analysis [17, 19] and chemical profiling [17] which was submitted to Patanjali Organic Research Institute (PORI) for further analysis. The data were statistically analyzed for mean and standard deviation (SD).

Fig. 1
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Map showing the study area

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Table 1 Different studied sites and their GPS coordinates
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Fig. 2
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Route of selected sites in the study area. The numbers denote the study sites

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Fig. 3
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Soil temperature and sampling from the selected sites

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3 Results and discussions

A total of 38 informants were interviewed at all the sites to gather their knowledge of plants and their local uses. A total of 37 plants were discussed by all the informants, whether they were found either in several or in all the sites. (Table 2). These plants were very common for the particular sites which were collected as per informant pieces of information and identified by the authors themselves with the help of native floras, publications, available herbarium, and websites. Three plants namely Fritillaria cirrhosa, Picrorhiza kurroa, Polygonatum verticillatum prominent in a single site; three plants Boswellia serrata, Hippophae salicifolia, Roscoea purpurea predominated in two sites; five plants Asparagus racemosus, Datura stramonium, Hedychium coronarium, Xanthium strumarium, Zanthoxylum armatum found in three sites; six plants Angelica glauca, Calotropis procera, Hedychium spicatum, Swertia chirayita, Tinospora cordifolia, Zingiber officinale reported in four sites; eleven plants Abutilon indicum, Allium sativum, Berberis asiatica, Bergenia ciliate, Bergera koenigii, Coccinia grandis, Curcuma longa, Cuscuta reflexa, Justicia adhatoda, Oxalis corniculata, Withania somnifera found in five sites; five plants Abelmoschus esculentus, Acorus calamus, Allium cepa, Cannabis sativa, Solanum nigrum dominated in six sites; Ricinus communis and Woodfordia fruticosa represented seven and eight sites respectively; two plants namely Achyranthes aspera and Artemisia indica were prominent that represented all the ten sites (Fig. 4). The study was focused on the altitudinal variations, hence we selected the top three plants which were present in more sites. These three plants were Achyranthes aspera L., Artemisia indica Willd., and Woodfordia fruticosa (L.) Kurz (Fig. 5).

Table 2 The medicinal plants and their prominent sites
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Fig. 4
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Number of plants and their prominent sites

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Fig. 5
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Plants in their natural habitats. Achyranthes aspera (A), Artemisia indica (B), Woodfordia fruticosa (C)

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The soil temperature gradually decreased as we moved toward the higher altitudes (Fig. 6). As we selected ten different sites which ranged between 328–3510 m. The lowest altitudinal range was in site ten having 27.67 °C soil temperature. While the lowest mean soil temperature recorded in site one (490 m) with 27.17 °C but its altitudinal range is very close to site ten (328 m), hence it is assumed that it is about equal in both sites. Sites nine (825 m), two (1053 m), seven (1285 m), and three (1550 m) are relatively very close one by one hence the soil average temperature recorded as 25.67 °C, 24.33 °C, 23.17 °C, and 22.50 °C respectively. Site four (2108 m), five (2401 m), and six (2470 m) are in high altitudes having 17.83 °C, 16.33 °C, and 16.17 °C respectively. Site eight (3510 m) is in the alpine zone of the study area and has a very low soil temperature of 14.33 °C. The soil microbial analysis and chemical profiling data are being validated as per the altitudinal gratitudes (data not shown).

Fig. 6
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Soil temperature with respect to altitudinal gratitudes

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This is a first-time study when multi-ranged medicinal plants were explored and analyzed for their medicinal uses along with altitudinal gradients. A total of ten sites from the lowest 328 m to the highest 3510 m were studied. Such type of altitudinal variation was earlier studied for only plant diversity assessment and climate change as in a Dudhatoli forest [23], Bhabha Valley [24], Dhauladhar mountain range [25], and various parts of the North West Himalaya [26,27,28,29,30]. However, the study areas have a wide range of species diversity among them some plants have multi-ranged that can grow in different ecological conditions. Similarly, Sharma and Kala [25] recorded tree species diversity across the temperate forest in the Dhauladhar mountain range in North-West Himalayas. Sharma et al. [26] recorded the lowest tree species diversity in the Khirsu region of Pauri Garhwal, and Bhat et al. [31] recorded the highest tree diversity in Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary. For soil analysis (manuscript in preparation) commonly the soil moisture is lowest in lower altitudes it significantly increases with increasing altitude while the bulk density showed reverse trends [32]. The chemical properties of soil as organic carbon, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus increased with increasing altitudes [32]. Similar results were observed by Kumar et al. [7] when they compare the soil of Gangotri (3415 m) and Kandakhal (1532 m). The temperature is low at high altitudes which is the major factor for high organic matter in high altitudes. The microbial count reduces at high altitudes due to cold stress [21]. The phytochemical of plants varies from site to site as on Berberis asiatica the active constituent berberine was reduced at high altitudes as compared with lower altitudes [33]. Thus, it may be said that altitudinal variations affect plant and soil characteristics as a result of environmental variations. Because elevation affects the growth and development of plants. In higher altitudes, the average temperature is lower as compared with lower altitudes; and various altitudes have varied amounts of sunlight, nutrients, water, and other factors that directly or indirectly affect plant life.