Status of medicinal and aromatic plants in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India

India is home to a great variety of ethno-medicinally important plant species and is ranked sixth among 12 mega-diversity countries of the world (Joshi et al., 2001). Medicinal plants as a group comprises approximately 8000 species and account for around 80% of all higher flowering plant species of India (Samant et al., 2002). The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) comprises of five biogeographic provinces i.e. Trans, North West, West, Central and East Himalaya and covers approximately an area of 591 thousand km2 (Rodgers and Panwar, 1998).