Research in recent years has increasingly shifted away from purely academic research, and into applied aspects of the discipline, including climate change research, conservation, and sustainable development. It has by now widely been recognized that “traditional” knowledge is always in flux and adapting to a quickly changing environment. Trends of globalization, especially the globalization of plant markets, have greatly influenced how plant resources are managed nowadays. While ethnobotanical studies are now available from many regions of the world, no comprehensive encyclopedic series focusing on the worlds mountain regions is available in the market. Scholars in plant sciences worldwide will be interested in this website and its dynamic content. The field (and thus the market) of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology has grown considerably in recent years. Student interest is on the rise, attendance at professional conferences has grown steadily, and the number of professionals calling themselves ethnobotanists has increased significantly (the various societies, like the Society for Economic Botany, the International Society of Ethnopharmacology, the Society of Ethnobiology, and the International Society for Ethnobiology currently have thousands of members). Growth has been most robust in BRIC countries. This new MRW on Ethnobotany of the Himalayas takes advantage of the increasing international interest and scholarship in the field of mountain research. It includes the best and latest research on a full range of descriptive, methodological, theoretical, and applied research on the most important plants in the Himalayas. Each contribution is scientifically rigorous and contributes to the overall field of study.

The present volume contains an editorial review article New vistas in Ethnobotany along with 76 other articles written by eminent ethno-botanist working in various scientific research and academic institutions in South Asia. Ethnobotany of tribals/traditional uses of plants in different parts of South Asia and ethnobotanical uses of Herbarium have been dealt with in this work besides many other useful articles. This work provides a glimpse of rich ethnobotanical heritage of South Asia.

The present monograph deals with an introductory account of land topography, geology and climate along with the people and the life of the tribal inhabitants. The floristic vegetation is distributed into tropical, sub tropical, temperate and alpine types, which included various types of plants used as food and vegetables in different localities by local inhabitants.