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Ethnobotany of the Himalayas: The Nepal, Bhutanese, and Tibetan Himalayas

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Ethnobotany of the Himalayas

Part of the book series: Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions ((ETMORE))

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Abstract

Plant use in the Nepal Himalaya, recorded in the 6500-year-old text of the Rigveda, ranks among the earliest uses of medicinal plants (Malla and Shakya 1984). Another early account, the Saushrut Nighantu, is perhaps the oldest Nepali medicinal plant book, which was produced during the rule of the Great King Mandev in the fifth century, and records the uses of 278 Nepalese medicinal plants (Subedi and Tiwari 2000; Gewali and Awale 2008). Later compendia of herbal pharmacopoeias such as Chandra Nighantu and Nepali Nighantu published in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively, described 750 plants and 971 articles (IUCN Nepal 2004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ethnobotanical Society of Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Ripu M. Kunwar

  2. Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Bhishma P. Subedi

  3. Maijubahal-7 Chabahil 7, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Sushim R. Baral

  4. University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Tek Maraseni

  5. Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Lanzhou, China

    Tek Maraseni

  6. Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Chris LeBoa

  7. Chair of Biogeography, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Yagya P. Adhikari

  8. Department of Ethnobotany, Institute of Botany and Bakuriani Alpine Botanical Garden, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

    Rainer W. Bussmann

  9. Saving Knowledge, La Paz, Bolivia

    Rainer W. Bussmann

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  1. Ripu M. Kunwar
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  7. Rainer W. Bussmann
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Correspondence to Rainer W. Bussmann .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA

    Ripu M. Kunwar

  2. Center for Plant Sciences & Biodiversity, University of Swat, Pakistan, Udigram, Pakistan

    Hassan Sher

  3. Institute of Botany, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

    Rainer W. Bussmann

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Kunwar, R.M. et al. (2021). Ethnobotany of the Himalayas: The Nepal, Bhutanese, and Tibetan Himalayas. In: Kunwar, R.M., Sher, H., Bussmann, R.W. (eds) Ethnobotany of the Himalayas. Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45597-2_5-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45597-2_5-1

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