Quantitative documentation of ethnomedicinal plants used by Mising Tribe inhabiting the forest fringe villages of Nameri National Park, Assam, India
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Abstract. Doley SN, Doley R, Barthakur M. 2026. Quantitative documentation of ethnomedicinal plants used by Mising Tribe inhabiting the forest fringe villages of Nameri National Park, Assam, India. Asian J Ethnobiol 9 (1): y090121. https://doi.org/10.13057/asianjethnobiol/y090121. Assam is one of the states of the northeast region of India, renowned for its abundant natural resources and rich diversity of ethnic groups, including the Mising Tribe. The Mising Tribe of Assam, primarily residing in riparian and forest-fringe areas, maintains unique ethnomedical practices that are integral to both healthcare and biodiversity conservation. This study aimed to document the ethnomedicinal plants used by the Mising Tribe inhabiting the forest fringe of Nameri National Park (NNP), Assam, India. Ethnobotanical information was gathered from 58 informants (males 38 and females 20) of four fringe villages of NNP through semi-structured interviews during the period of March 2022 to March 2025. In the results, a total of 109 medicinal plant species belonging to 58 families were recorded. Among these, a total of 19 species is a new record of ethnomedicinal plants that have not been previously reported for the Mising Tribe. The dominant family was Rutaceae (7 species), followed by Asteraceae, Moraceae, and Solanaceae (4 species for each). Most of the plants were herbaceous (37%), and the majority of remedies were prepared from leaves (28%). High Informant Consensus Factor (ICF) values were observed for connective disorders (0.97), respiratory (0.89), and skin disease (0.86). These findings emphasize the importance of preserving ethnomedicinal knowledge of the Mising community inhabiting ecologically sensitive forest-fringe areas and highlighting crucial plant species for pharmacological validation and conservation.
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