On the traditional medicinal plants and plant-derived natural drugs used by indigenous people of Nagaland, India.

An ethnobotanical documentation on the medicinal plants used by local people of Nagaland (North-east India) has been presented here. The study explored 33 plant species (with their local names, indigenous applications, sources/origins, parts of plants used, bioactive compounds present, process of preparing medicines from the plants) belonging to 28 families have been reviewed thoroughly. Some examples are, Catharanthus roseus ( Tsuinrinaro , Periwinkle), Acacia pennata ( Chakrangaing , Ballikhadira), Adhatoda vasica ( Kicharangnaro, Malabar-nut), Ageratum conzyoides ( Imchenriza , Billy-goat-weed,/Tropical-white-weed), Alstonia scholaris ( Lazarongpang , Blackboard), Rauvolfia serpentina ( Per-mozutong , Indian-snakeroot), etc. Plant based drugs are very popular and effective in Nagaland from ancient times but thorough-documentation with scientific-background of effectiveness, active chemical-compounds present, their action-mechanism, etc., are still scanty. Such review can be of useful for pharmacologist, phyto-chemists to a broad group of researchers and may lead to discovery of new sources of novel medicines through traditional therapeutic knowledge.