Wild Fruits of Uttarakhand (India): Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Uses

Fruit is a ripened ovary, it may either fleshy or nut and divided into cultivated as well as wild categories. Wild fruits are worldwide distributed and mostly found in the part of earth where anthropogenic activities are no or negligible. The use of Himalayan plant species for food and medicine has been known for a long time. Uttarakhand is one of these places which is suitable for wild edible fruiting plants because of their difficult geography and climatic conditions and awesome taste of fruits which are attracted by their people as a rich source of their nutrition. Wild edible plants are very important for the well being of rural populations in the region, not only as sources of supplemental food, nutritionally balanced diets, medicines, fodder and fuel, but also for their income generating potential. Large numbers of wild fruits along with their edible values also used in medicine and many other wild fruits viz. Rubus ellipticus, Fragaria ananassa, Prunus persica, Myrica esculenta etc. have high nutritive quality and used by the local peoples for the different edible products. Such wild plants might be explore for their nutritional and medicinal properties and need to conserve for biodiversity maintenance.