Performance of five medicinal and spice crops viz. Fenugreek, Fennel, Celery and Dillseed was investigated as sole crops and as intercrops with block plantations of Poplar, Dek, Toon, Gmelina, Maharukh and Eucalypt spaced at 6 x 3.5 m at the age of two and three years during 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, respectively in the Research Farm of Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab. Eucalypt trees recorded the maximum height, whereas the mean gain in DBH was maximum in Maharukh. Crown spread was more of Dek than rest of the tree species after three years of tree growth. All the crops performed better as sole crops than intercrops. Increase in age of trees from two to three years resulted in significant decline in growth and yield contributing characters like plant height, number of primary branches, umbels and umbellets per plant in Fennel, Celery, Dillseed, and number of pods, seeds/pod and pod length of Fenugreek crop. The seed yield of Fenugreek and Fennel was higher under Gmelina, whereas Dillseed recorded highest yield under Poplar trees during both the years. The production of Celery was higher under Poplar and Toon at the age of two and three years, respectively. All the crops recorded the highest reduction in seed yield when grown with Eucalypt than other trees during 3^rd year of tree growth. Celery gave the highest returns followed by Fennel and Dillseed in second year of tree growth, while Dillseed, Fenugreek and Fennel remained more remunerative in the subsequent year.

The branch cuttings of Dendrocalamus asper were collected in the month of April 2009 from the already established phenotypically superior clumps growing in Forest Research Institute, Dehradun Campus. The cuttings were treated with rooting hormones (IAA, IBA, NAA and Coumarin with concentration of 500 ppm) to assess the rooting ability of branch cuttings under natural conditions. The binodal cuttings were made and were placed horizontally in plastic trays and vertically in earthen pots for rooting. Observations were recorded on rooting response of branch cuttings. Maximum 65% rooting was recorded in the cuttings treated with IBA 500 ppm followed by Control (untreated cuttings) 55% in horizontally placed cuttings. However, the minimum rooting percentage was observed in case of IAA 500 ppm and Coumarin 500 ppm (40%) treated cuttings. In vertically planted cuttings IBA 500 ppm shows maximum rooting percentage (55%) followed by NAA 500 ppm treated cuttings (50%) however minimum rooting was recorded in case of IAA and coumarin 500ppm. The cuttings planted horizontally gave better rooting response as compared to the cuttings planted vertically. IBA 500 ppm treatment has proved to be the best rooting hormone for rooting of branch cutting of Dendrocalamus asper. The number of root and shoot length was maximum in NAA 500 ppm treated cuttings, while there was less variation observed in sprout number with treatment.

Study was undertaken to understand the population size and distribution of Nardostachys jatamansi vis-à-vis phyto-associates at three subsites containing highly dense (Subsite-1), moderate (Subsite-2) and lowest population (Subsite-3) of N. jatamansi. The community composition between the sub sites was observed a very little difference with recoding 13, 15 and 12 species respectively in Subsite-1, Subsite-2 and Subsite-3.  About 80% species were common in all Subsites, while 6.66% species were common in two Subsites and 13.32% species were observed unique in all subsites. Intra-site comparisons indicate that N. jatamansi and Anaphalis triplinervis had the mutualism type of interaction with one another. Picrorrhiza kurrooa, Anemone obtusiloba, Pyrus sp. and Saxifraga diversifolia showed the negative correlation with N. jatamansi. The populations of these phyto- associates appear to adversely affect with the population of N. jatamansi for utilization of resources. Pedicularis sp., Carex sp., Saussurea sp., Tanacetum longifolium, Saxifraga sp. and Araiostegia sp. showed the neutral type of interaction with N.jatamansi, which indicates that, the population of Nardostachys jatamansi is not affected by association with these species.

The present paper reports fifteen medicinal plant species belonging to twelve families from the Timberline Forest Extensions (TFEs) in Dayyara meadow which is located in district Uttarkashi of Garhwal Himalaya at an elevation ranging between 3308 m and 4200 m. Timberline Forest Extensions (TFEs) are dense small patches of typical timberline woody species which serve as refuge habitat for commercially exploited and vulnerable medicinal plants. The deformed architecture of the woody species in these TFEs further supports the growth of herbs by sheltering them from various biotic and natural stresses.

The effect of different concentrations of auxins and cytokinins either alone or in combination with additives was assessed to be useful on the direct regeneration of shoot tip and nodal explants of N.foetida. BA and IBA proved comparatively better than others. The highest direct regeneration percent (95.0, 92.0 in shoot tip and nodal explants respectively) was observed on the MS medium supplemented with BA (3.0mgL^-1) + IBA (1.0mgL^-1) and additives (adenine sulphate (50mgL^-1) + glutamine (100mgL^-1) + L-arginine (25mgL^-1) + citric acid (0.0025%) + ascorbic acid (0.005%). Shoot tips as explants performed better by giving higher regeneration percentage and better growth of propagules in comparison to nodal explants in the establishment media.

Clonal propagation studies of Embelia ribes Burm.f. (Myrsinaceae) by treating semihard and hardwood stem cuttings for  inducing rooting using various hormones are presented. Standardisation of air layering techniques are also provided as part of the propagation studies. The plants of 6-8 year old has resulted in maximum rooting of 80% in semihard wood cuttings treated with IBA at 1000 ppm and air layering success was also found to be 70% with that of same concentration. The clonal propagation methods standardized through stem cuttings and air layering in this species is a first report and it can be an ideal propagation techniques for its mass multiplication for conservation and sustainable utilization of this rare species.

Variability and diversity of Eclipta prostrata (L.)L., an important medicinal plant species, in its natural habitats in Kerala has been analyzed based on the observations on twelve salient growth characters recorded from twenty five accessions of the species distributed across Calicut, Malappuram and Palakkad Districts of Kerala State, India. Among the twelve characters studied, ten characters such as number of branches per plant, length of branches, number of leaves per plant, leaf length, leaf area, internodal length, number of inflorescences, peduncle length and fresh plant weight showed statistically significant variations between the populations. The attributes like plant height and leaf breadth did not vary much between the populations. Highly significant variability in the case of morphological characters indicates the strong genetic base of the plant species in the field providing it the genetic potential to overcome the threats of fragmentation and extinction in the study area. However, Eclipta prostrata being a fragile and herbaceous annual, drastic alterations in their habitats including filling of wet lands and crop conversion in paddy fields can pose serious threat thus making it rare and vulnerable in future.

The Padder valley in Jammu & Kashmir state is endowed with highly diverse ecological conditions in the lap of North-Western Himalayas. The present study resulted in the documentation of 34 different medicinal herbs belonging to 18 families in the study area, Asteraceae as the dominant family. A total of 11 highly tradable medicinal plants were estimated for biomass availability and productivity.

The present work highlight about S. torvum, (Solanaceae) and locally known as “Titbaigun”. They are growing wildly in open wastelands and on the road sides in tropical parts of India and some places of Uttarakhand. Its root contain five chemicals and generally used as tonic for liver and heart. The leaf contain six chemicals and good bio-pesticides. The berries are edible as vegetable, rich source of alkaloid and having fifteen chemicals that used in traditional medicines. Thus, S. torvum plant is widely used for treatment of  a large number of human ailments such as sedative, arthritis, digestive, cough, asthma, pile, reduce the blood pressure, tuberculosis, night blindness, cholesterol, diabetes, prevent cancer,  AIDS, heart diseases, birth control, etc. I have grown S. torvum plants at high altitude Gopeshwar-Chamoli (about 1500 masl) by seeds in natural conditions successfully. Present species is not occur at this altitudes.

In this paper highlights a brief description of Spilanthes acmella L. is provided along with its medicinal importance.

The present paper describes medicinally important weeds plant of district Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh. An ethonobotanical survey was conducted in villages of study area, during 2003-2005, and 53 plant species under 48 genera belonging to 28 families were found of ethonomedicinal value. The plant species are enumerated in alphabetical order with families and local names, followed by their ethonomedicinal uses.

Frequent ethnomedicinal surveys were conducted between August 2004 to March 2008 in different villages of Ratlam district. Results of these surveys indicated that 36 plant species are interestingly used for the treatment of various respiratory disorders such as Asthma, Cough and Cold, Throat infection, Hoarseness, Tuberculosis, Pneumonia etc. prevalent in the bhil tribe of the district. Botanical names followed by family, local names and the ethnomedicinal uses have been provided.

The present study highlights the medicinal plants used for treating various urinary complaints by the Bagata tribe of Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh. This paper enumerates the traditional the rapeutic uses of 37 plant species belonging to 36 genera under 24 families used to cure various urinary problems. New uses were also reported.

The study pertains to data collected from randomly selected 100 lac growers in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh for the year 2008-09. The study indicated that 40% lac growers were medium farmers followed by small (27%), marginal (22%), semi-medium (8%) and large (3%). The majority of lac growers had education up to high school level. Share of income from lac was 17.3% and 33% of total income and farm income respectively of lac growers. In case of off-farm income, maximum income was contributed by forest produce which was 23.1% of total income of farmers. The host utilization percentage was maximum for Palas (44.3%) followed by Kusum (42.1%), other hosts (30.0%) and Ber (25.4%). About 59.0% lac growers produced lac with average production of 52.5 kg, 29.0% lac growers had average production of 135.2 kg and 12.0% lac growers had average production of 225.9 kg annually. The study of marketing behavior indicated that around 84% grower sold their produce either in village or in the market/ Haat up to 5 km radius. Grading practice was less operational in the area. Lac was used as a cash crop and majority of farmers sold lots of 5-10 kg. Around 88% farmers sold lac immediately after harvesting. Implications of the present study will be helpful in strengthening the socio-economic condition of lac growers and lac marketing scenario in Chhattisgarh.

Nursery experiments were carried out to evaluate two different pre-emergence herbicides on germination, seedling growth and weed control efficiency of Jatropha nursery. Three days after sowing, pre-emergence herbicides viz. pendimethalin (30% EC) and fluchloralin (45% EC) were applied at different concentrations on the nursery bags using rose cane. Twenty days after application of herbicides, observations were made on germination percentage and 45 days after application of herbicides, parameters like number of predominant weeds (broad leaved, grasses and sedges), weed dry weight(g), weed control efficiency (%), germination (%), root length (cm), shoot length (cm) and dry matter production (g seedling^-5) of Jatropha seedling in each treatment were recorded. The results revealed that the compatibility of application of pre-emergence herbicide of pendimethalin @ 0.05% - 0.10% can be used effectively to control broad leaved weeds, without impairing the germination and seedling growth of Jatropha curcas.

A survey was conducted in the home gardens of Cherpu Block in Thrissur district of Kerala state to elucidate the floristic attributes of the wood perennials and to document the associated dendrobotanical information. Plant diversity analyses revealed 81 tree species in different families with a Simpson’s index of diversity of 0.91. The collected dendrobotancial information confirms the role and value of trees in providing multiple ecosystem services to the society.

The present paper deals with 47 plant species consumed as food supplement by the local inhabitants of Kudiraimozhi theri (KMT) apart from the seasonal crops and vegetables.