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Online ISSN : 2349-8080 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorinchiefijcrbp@gmail.com |
Dioscorea L. commonly known as yam is the large genus in the family Dioscoreaceae with 602 species distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions. It is an important food crop next to cereals and grains due to high yield storage of carbohydrates which form an important place in the dietary habits of small and marginal farmers especially in the food security of tribal population. The tubers are also rich source of various secondary metabolites including Diosgenin, a commercially important bioactive sapogenin used as a precursor in the manufacturing of sex hormones, oral contraceptives and other pharmaceutically important steroidal drugs. Despite of its huge diversity only few species are recognised to be useful for medicinal and edible purposes. About 50 species of Dioscorea are distributed in India. The North East India, one of the hotspot of biodiversity is particularly rich in tropical root and tuber crops. Dioscorea species are in luxuriant growth in wild habitat in this region. The present study mainly addressed to explore the ethnomedicinal uses of Dioscorea in North East India and also focused on safe conservation and sustainable uses of various wild relatives of Dioscorea species present in this region.
