Traditional Anti-poison Plants Used by the Monpa Tribe of Arunachal Pradesh

Abstract

Arunachal Pradesh is a treasure house of biodiversity as well as traditional knowledge. The state harbours over 800 medicinal plants. Rising demands of significant medicinal plants such as Taxus baccata, Paris polyphylla, Swertia chirayita, Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora, etc. for developing pharmaceutical drugs have drastically reduced the wild population of these species. Some important medicinal plants of the state, their bioactive efficacy and conservation status are mentioned in this paper. This paper also describes the traditional use of 13 ethnomedicinal plants used by the Monpa tribe of Arunachal Pradesh as antidote against food poisoning, snake bite, scorpion bite and insect bites. Some of the potent antidote plants claimed by the Monpa tribe are Aconitum heterophyllum, Asparagus racemosus, Ligularia amplexicaulis, Rhododendron hodgsonii, Swertia hookeri and Verbascum thapsus. Out of the 13 traditional antidote plants, six are new to science as traditional medicine and are yet to be pharmaceutically validated for their bioactivity. Given the strong traditional cultural use of the plants, it is expected that biochemical and pharmacological studies would reveal the bioactive compounds, which could be further developed as holistic evidence-based drugs to cure some complicated ailments/diseases.