Most of early 18^th century proliferation of travel literature was an outcome of European travel expeditions to the non-European lands which embossed the idea of ‘the rest of the world’ on a European readership that was witnessing rapid expansion of imperialist desires and designs by the turn of the century. Critically examining these travel accounts, Mary Lousie Pratt zooms into two important events that endow significant understanding to the history of European imperialist ventures. One of these is the La Condamine expedition to determine the exact shape of the earth, and the other is the publication of Carl Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae (1735) [The System of Nature] in which “the Swedish naturalist laid down a uniform classificatory system designed to categorise all plant forms on the planet according to the characteristics of their reproductive parts, whether known or unknown to Europe” (Pratt 1992: 15), thereby systematising/instutionalising the natural, as the name suggests. It is this Linnaean system, Pratt observes, that launched the curious figure of the herborizer as traveller, who with his desire for peaceful hours with bugs and plants, epitomised benign intellectual labour which stood as an antithesis to industrial Europe and the notion of alienated labour. While the life and discoveries of the herborizer filled the pages of these travelogues, these also created an unprecedented upsurge of the European knowledge building exercise. The apparently harmless travelogue of the herborizer seems to have been appropriated by the disciples of Linnaeus who went on to blend travel writing with a systematic account of natural history exploration through which order was composed by extracting the plant species from their particular, arbitrary surroundings (chaos of the non-west) and placing them in an appropriate spot in the system (the order-book, collection, or ‘garden’ as understood by Europe) with its new written, secular European name (which became the botanical Bible in Latin!). This systematic endowment of a new European identity to the plant species located at any corner of the world, in the course of time, must have given impetus to the creation of the discipline of Botany which, rooted within the larger field of natural history and philosophy, eventually emerged as an autonomous and distinctive field of enquiry. Botany was further transmuted into a potent tool in the hands of the colonisers which became extremely effective for them to expand their imperial interests of conquest and colonisation (Baber 2016: 660). Thus not only did botanical science represent the complex social embeddedness and autonomy of science itself, it also continued Linnaeus’ legacy of understanding every plant species, its character and embeddedness through a European frame of reference which in turn impacted social and cultural understanding of the place from a perspective that was devotedly western. As the enterprise of botanical exploration went on to contribute towards forwarding the cause of economic imperialism, it also created a hierarchy in the practices of knowledge production where science and the scientist emerged as the authentic instrument of knowledge creation, and consequently of European domination, while any ‘other’ modes of knowledge production was relegated to the background as speculative and unimportant, an idea that seems to have its impact even today, despite our assertive claim of decolonising everything under the sun. Consequently, plant life became nature that was only culture that the modern, Enlightenment-wise west so fondly advocated

While accounts of the European botanical expeditions eclipse much of what is there to know, despite our best decolonial interests, we must acknowledge that these extremely meticulous accounts are rich repositories of places, people, and relationships that inform our own histories. Based on how these accounts are read, how attentive we are to note both the presences and absences in them, these accounts can become the medium of furthering comprehension of own history which can go on to provoke numerous discussions based on what was erased, what remained and to what effect. For example, Pratt’s intensive investigation into such accounts allows her to comes up with the idea of ‘contact zones’ which are “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (Pratt 1991: 34). In these contact zones there is a “spatial and temporal copresence of subjects previously separated by geographic and historical disjuncture, and whose trajectories now intersect” (Pratt 1992: 6). So we may infer that inherent in the idea of ‘contact zone’ is a sense of clash and asymmetrical power equation in a geographical space which also evolves as a social space where ‘copresence’ of cultures- the existing and the incoming cultures- cannot lead to the presumption of cohabitation or comingling of those cultures organically. Rather the idea of friction, the structures of domination and subordination warn about continuous erasure of the subordinated culture, almost to the point of oblivion. Such an idea emerges as significant when we discern places in the Himalaya which have always been ‘contact zones’ where cultures, habits, knowledge, languages have always clashed, cohabited, and comingled, creating a complex structure through erasure, assimilation and acculturation, while also leaving behind traces of what has been. In this ‘contact zone’ imperial botanical explorations inaugurated a culture of nature which was reflective of both subjugation and ignorance of the powerful. The knowledge that has thus been produced submerges in it the clash between dominant European botanical system of knowledge production and the indigenous plant-life practices of the place, which has definitely obscured the inherent culture of the place to a great extent, but may be has not been able to completely erase it. A search for these obscure lives, some which are lost, some of which are dying, some of which may be anticipated, is what makes an exploration of plant lives within cultures that are predominantly Indian, and through the discipline of Humanities, quite a timely exercise because where would we find all that we need to know, all that has been left behind, except in the imaginative life of stories which allows us to continuously assess our relationship with the world? This exercise also holds immense importance now, when the discipline of Humanities has been beleaguered by criticisms regarding its vocational incapacity that completely overshadows the fact that it has always been invested in building minds that can think, question and thus call for change. Hence, the Himalayan Chapter in Indian Plant Humanities, which is in no sense exhaustive, is presented as an exercise in evoking the need to explore plant lives in the context of the Himalaya. Such an exercise is developed in an anticipation to analyse how plant life is visualised in stories, poems, essays that are considered Himalayan. The list is not exclusively non-western but tries to challenge the omnipotence of botanical ‘truth’ about plants and the way these affect lives and living. It tries to create avenues to think and challenge the ways in which imperial botanical knowledge producing practices mapped the region while also affecting its social, cultural, political and philosophical demography, so much so that what still remains seems to a extant to be a bowl filled to the brim with colonial nostalgia.

Although, Himalaya was not fully colonised, there is no gainsaying the fact that, it was nonetheless impacted by the colonial rule in ways more than one. Colonial interests prompted exploratory expeditions of administrative, missionary and scientific measures across the region where colonial agents were actively involved in producing knowledge which would help in developing a “rationalised system of administration and revenue collection” (Baber, 2016: 662). By the time the company gained access to the eastern part of Himalaya, mainly through the cessation of Darjeeling from the Sikkim Rajah in 1835, Botany and the prospects of botanical surveys had already become concomitant to the idea of economic gains for the company while also becoming a means of consolidating its administrative grip. For the colonial botanists, therefore, Himalaya was transfixed as a field of exploration. They brought with them apriori knowledge frameworks from the west to understand Himalayan plant life, most importantly, the prospects the hilly terrain could have for the empire’s future. While the colonial gaze contributed immensely towards generating knowledge about the region, it also engendered a silencing of knowledge of the region, especially of that which lay beyond the frame that imperial botanists were familiar with. The sub-Himalayan region of northern Bengal, for example, witnessed the impact of the colonial imperative of economic gains through a change in its forest culture and cultivation patterns where shifting cultivation was replaced by permanent cultivation, orange cultivation climbed uphill to make space for tea cultivation in the Dooars region. Tea, which endows identity to these hills now, had come to the place when 40,000 plants and seedlings were collected from China by Robert Fortune (1848-1851) and were experimentally replanted in Assam, Nilgiris and the “annexed southern parts of Sikkim” (Baber 2016: 669) which definitely was the hills of Darjeeling and the foothills of Dooars. Tea gardens expanded and the totalising botanical experiment endowed an identity to the place which made the pre-colonial practices of trade and commerce insignificant. Likewise, the British imperative of transforming these borderland regions into frontiers of the nation-state left no space for the region to articulate a sense of its own. It is these silent erasures that needs to be voiced so that the region can be understood using a nuanced perspective, that nullifies the dominance of the colonial gaze. The Himalayan chapter of the Indian Plant Humanities project may be considered as a route to exploring the possibilities of rethinking about the life and living in the region through reading and re-reading texts and trends of this region from an intersection of knowledge domains. Such a practice can in itself act as resistance to any dominant process and outcome of knowledge production, thus broadening out curiosities, perspectives and field of enquiry.

The Himalayan chapter encapsulates the hope that all might not have been lost in these landscapes by the imposing imperial botanical ventures; that reorienting our frames of examination might help that critical lens to surface which might allow us to see the emdedded history of thought and life in the place from a different perspective, while opening up a new dimension of knowledge producing practices. Hence committed to what Indian Plant Humanities envisages, the Himalayan chapter embarks on a journey to only point at those literatures which may have sparks that reflect upon the entangled lives of nature and people, celebrating the organic link that may be considered an essential character Himalaya. The imperialism motivated natural history exploration might have remained oblivious to this essential character of the region which was for them only a field for testing concepts that germinated in the continental gardens. While this enterprise was endowing a new sense of visibility to the Himalaya, which were smarting under the European designs of extraction and experimentation, the asymmetrical power equations here could not transcend the classificatory and use-oriented culture of scientific exploration which impacted the way regional histories were documented, where plant life only appeared as a case in point. How can we re-read such stories? May be reframing our perspective of telling and doing can also allow us to both question and find answers as to what meanings Himalaya carries within itself, what meanings are lost, and what meanings should be revived for a life of hope.

This list of readings concentrates on those works which have emerged from the eastern region of Himalaya. The readings have been selected keeping in mind the imperative of looking into plant perspectives. However, plant perspectives are supposed to be entangled with other perspectives, thereby emerging as a way of understanding life as is supposed to be embedded in the consciousness of the region. Hence, besides providing a glimpse of the natural world, these readings might convey a sense of the relationship between different forms of lives as it works in the ever changing dynamics of the region. Such an exploration may allow us to stumble upon that which can evolve as a character of the region as may be found in Lekhnath Paudyal RituVichāra (1916), contemplation on the seasons, most probably inspired by Kalidasa’s Ritu Samhāra. Parijat’s Sirisko Phul (1965) could be read as contemplation on the life of a woman as a flower, not in the conventional sense of being beautiful, but in a rebellious way. Mamang Dai’s The Black Hill (2016) inheres the clash between cultures in the hills of Arunachal so that the text forwards a philosophy of life that emerges from an experience situated within the region, an experience that entangles humans, mountains, rivers, trees, animals and the region as involved in making sense of each other.

Depicted as borders, frontiers, conflict zones, Himalaya’s relationship with the nation is ambivalent. The bewilderment is clear among the writers who, while striving to understand their relationship with the place, are also overwhelmed by trying to legitimise their place in the world which has trapped the region within the coordinates of modernist understanding. Hence, while the literatures from the region aptly render voice to problems of identity, migration, state-formation, refugee crisis, ecological degradation, how far these writings consciously or unconsciously reflect on entangled living of man and nature to forward an understanding of the place needs concentrated and in depth analysis. While we have literatures like Paudyal’s Taruņa Tapasī (1953), where the conservation between the saintly spirit of a tree and a bereaved man categorically points at how nature-culture dichotomy impacts the idea of the region, literatures from the tea gardens veer towards speaking of labour relation in the colonial and the postcolonial time frames with scant reflection on that which creates this literature- the tea plant. One might be tempted to suggest that for the writers from an older generation the relationship with the place seems to be more organic than the writers from a younger generation who seem to be more embroiled with the questions evoked by the modernist coordinates of the nation state. However, Indian Plant Humanities envisages a methodology using which the social, cultural, political edifice of a place may be rebuilt to comprehend these places through that aspect which has been most neglected but most impacted by the onslaught of the present times- thinking through plant life. In the wake of a critical understanding of environmental humanities and globalisation, recent literature of the place steers its effort towards looking consciously for ways to rebuild the lost connection with the place and what it embodies. While such an enterprise does not do away with the dominance of the western paradigm of knowledge production, it could open conversations that would allow one to look for organic rather than cosmetic attachment to plant thought as emanating from this part of the Himalaya. Hence it is important to examine how the myths are being retold, folktales re-visited, and how the narratives are taking a pause to look around for the trampled and left behind. How they are gathering the wounds and trying to listen to the hills which have been ravaged for too long to meet expectations? The stories, while moving forward, are also returning to pick up the peripheralised strands of the periphery, which actually play the real part towards comprehending the place. Looking at plant perspectives may, thus, allow us to ponder over how place plays a significant role in conditioning the writer and her works, thereby leading to the comprehension of what may be Himalayan, a lens that could diffuse the centrality of west induced modes of understanding and impacting places and the relationships therein.

References:

Baber, Zaheer. 2016. “The Plants of Empire: Botanic Gardens, Colonial Power and Botanical Knowledge”. Journal of Contemporary Asia 46(4): 659-679.

Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge.

—. 1991. “Arts of the Contact Zone”. Modern Language Association.33-40.

Primary Readings

Poems

1. Alai, and Herbert J. Batt. 2000. “The Grassland Sings Itself”. Manoa, 12(2), 118–118. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4229890

2. Dai, Mamang. 2005. “Green in the time of Flood”. Indian Literature, 93.4(228), 86-87. Link : https://www.jstor.org/stable/23340798

3. —. 2005. “The Voice of the Mountain”. India International Centre Quarterly 32(2/3). 45-48.

4. —. 2009. “The River”. In Robin Singh Ngangom and Kynpham edited Dancing Earth: An Anthology of Poetry from North-East India. New Delhi: Penguin Books. 89-90.

5. Devkota, Lakshmiprasad. 1936 [2017]. Muna -Madan. (Excerpts from Muna-Madan). Trans. Michael Hutt. In Michael Hutt edited Modern Literary Nepali: An Introductory Reader. New Delhi: OUP. 129-151.

6. —. 1969. Ban-kusum (Wild Flowers). Kathmandu: SajhaPrakashan.

7. Ering, Ayinam. 2021. “I am a Tree”. In Mamang Dai edited The Inheritance of Words: Writings from Arunachal Pradesh. New Delhi: Zubaan.

8. Koirala, M. 1991 [2017].“Pahar ko Phul” (A Flower Amid the Mountain Rocks). Trans. Michael Hutt. In Michael Hutt edited Himalayan Voices: An Introduction to Modern Nepali Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press.

9. Meizhou. 2002. Three Poems. Manoa 12 (2): 146-149.

10. Nongkynrih KS.2011. “Laitlum”. In KS Nongkynrih’s The Yearning of Seeds. New Delhi: Harper Collins. 112.

11. Roy, Sumana. 2015. “The Afterlives of Trees and Their Lovers”. Grantha. Link: https://granta.com/the-afterlife-of-trees-and-their-lovers/

12. — 2020. “Gayabari”. Aroop: An Annual Journal of Arts, Poetry and Ideas. 4: 104.

13. —. 2016. “Death by Darjeeling”. Himal Southasian. Link: https://www.himalmag.com/death-by-darjeeling-and-other-poems/

14. —. 2020. “Looking at Hill Cart Road from Google Earth”. Plato’s Caves Online. Link: https://platoscavesonline.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/a-poem-by-sumana-roy-with-illustration-from-subarnarekha-pal/

15. —. 2020. “Margaret’s Hope”. Aroop: An Annual Journal of Arts, Poetry and Ideas. 4: 102.

16. Sama, Balkrishna. n.f. [2017]. “Rukh Nakata Daure Dai” (Don’t Cut Down the Trees, Brother Woodcutter). Trans. Michael Hutt. In Michael Hutt edited Modern Literary Nepali: An Introductory Reader. New Delhi: OUP. 123.

Novels and Stories:

1. Ao, Temsula. 2009. “Laburnum for my Head”. In Temsula Ao’s Laburnum for my Head. New Delhi: Penguin India.

2. Bhattacharya, Krishnapriyo. 2021. Amochu. Kolkata: Chinta Prakashani.

3. Choden, Kunzang. 2007. Chilly and Cheese: Food and Society in Bhutan. Bangkok: White Lotus.

4. Dai, Mamang. 2014. The Black Hill. New Delhi: Aleph Books.

5. Desai, Kiran. 2006. The Inheritance of Loss. London: Hamish Hamilton.

6. Ghosh, Amitav. 2022. The Living Mountain. New Delhi: Fourth Estate.

7. Lama, Pabitra. 2022. Mahua. Darjeeling: HaatGharPrakashan.

8. Pariat, Janice. 2022. Everything the Light Touches. New Delhi:Harper Collins India.

9. Parijat. 2012 [1964]. Shirish Ko Phool (Blue Mimosa). Trans. Tanka Vilas Varya and Sondra Zeidenstein. Noida: Orchid.

10. Pemba, Yeshi Tsewang. 2017. White Crane, Lend Me Your Wings. Kolkata: Niyogi Books.

11. Pradhan, Prem. 2002[2020]. Udasin Rukharu (The Forlorn Trees). Trans. Srijana Subba. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.

12. Rai, Indra Bahadur. 2017 [1964]. Aaja Ramita Chha (There’s a Carnival Today). Trans. Manjushree Thapa. New Delhi: Speaking Tiger.

13. —. 2018. Raat Bhar Huri Chalyo (Long Night of Storm). Trans. Prawin Adhikari. New Delhi: Speaking Tiger.

14. Roy, Sumana. 2020. “Blind Water”. In Sumana Roy’s My Mother’s Lover and Other Stories. New Delhi: Bloomsbury. 2-19.

15. —. 2020. “The Mountain Disease”. In Sumana Roy’s My Mother’s Lover and Other Stories. New Delhi: Bloomsbury. 123-144.

16. Samphel, Thubten. 2021. Copper Mountain. Dharamshala: Blackneck Books.

17. Shrestha, Chetan Raj. 2013. The King’s Harvest. New Delhi: Aleph Books.

18. Taba, Suba. 2021. “The Spirit of the Forest”. In Mamang Dai edited The Inheritance of Words: Writings from Arunachal Pradesh. New Delhi: Zubaan.

19. Thapa, Manjushree. 1992. Mustang Bhot in Fragments. Kathmandu: Himal Books.

Children’s Books:

1. RinzinRinzin. 2017. The Pheasant takes the Owl to Court. Thimpu: Riyang Books.

2. Singh, Rina. 2023. The Forest Keeper: The True Story of Jadav Payeng. NorthSouth Books.

3. Ura Central School. 2019. Merigula, Children of the Forest: A Folktale from Ura. Bumthang: READ Bhutan.

4. Yangthang READ Centre. 2017. How Turnips Came to Haa. Yangthang: READ Bhutan.

5. Lepcha, Sangmo. 2021. Shantiban. Darjeeling: Malank-Mingmar Prakashan.

Non-Fiction:

1. Clingen, Kira Bre. 2022. Wild Yam: The Rhizome of the Pill. Dumbarton Oaks: Plant Humanities.

2. Dhompa, TseringWangmo. 2013. A Home in Tibet. Gurgaon: Penguin Random House India.

3. Fraser, C.R. Jenkins. 2006. The First Botanical Collectors in Nepal. The Fern Collections of Hamilton. Gardner and Wallich: Bishen Singh.

4. Hara, Hiroshi. 1966. The Flora of Eastern Himalaya- Results of the Botanical Expeditions to Eastern Himalaya. University of Tokyo Press.

5. Hooker, Joseph D. 1854. Himalayan Journals or Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, The Khasia Mountains, & c.– Vol. 1. John Murray: London.

6. Hooker, Joseph D. 1855. Illustrations of Himalayan Plants. John Murray: London.

7. Hooker, Joseph D. 1849. The Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya. John Murray: London.

8. Lancaster, Roy. 1981. Plant hunting in Nepal. Noida: Vikas Publishing.

9. Matthiessen, Peter. 1978. The Snow Leopard. Viking Press: New York.

10. Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Rene de. 1956. Where the Gods are Mountains: Three Years Among the People of the Himalayas. Translated from the German by Michael Bullock. London.

11. Roy, Sumana. 2017. How I Became a Tree. New Delhi: Aleph Books.

12. Schmithausen, Lambert. 2009. Plants in Early Buddhism and the Far Eastern Idea of the Buddha-Nature of Grasses and Trees. Lumbini International Research Institute. Lumbini.

13. Ward Kingdon, Frank. 2006. A Plant Hunter in Tibet. Kegan Paul Limited.

Secondary Readings:

Society, Literature, Culture, Environment:

Books:

1. Besky, Sara: 2013. Darjeeling Distinction: Labour and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India. Berkley: University of California Press.

2. Deka, D., Rodrigues, J., Kikon, D., Karlsson, B. G., Barbora, S. & Tula, M. 2023. Seeds and Sovereignty: Eastern Himalayan Experiences. North Eastern Social Research Centre.

3. Dorji, Tashi. 2015. The Green Mandala: What makes Bhutan an Environmental Paradise. New Delhi: Imprint.

4. Dorji, Tashi. 2019. Oral History in Bhutan. Thimpu: Green Mandala Publications.

5. Guha, Ramchandra. 1989. Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Berkeley: University of California Press.

6. Jianqiang, Liu. 2010. Tibetan Environmentalists in China. Trans. Ian Rowen et.al. Pennyslyvania: Lexington Books.

7. Kennedy, Dane. 1996. The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

8. Middleton, Townsend and Sara Shneiderman. 2018. Darjeeling Reconsidered: History, Politics, Environments. New Delhi: OUP.

9. Mukhia, Terence (eds). 2017. Tea Garden Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.

10. Ngangom, Robin Singh, and Kynpham (ed). 2009. Dancing Earth: An Anthology of Poetry from North-East India. New Delhi: Penguin Books

11. Nongkynrih , KS. 2011. The Yearning of Seeds. New Delhi: Harper Collins.

12. Raha, Manis. K. 1992. The Himalayas and the Himalayans: Studies in Ecology, Biology and Culture. Anthropological Survey of India.

13. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2021. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

14. Zheng, Yangwen. 2005. The Social Life of Opium in China. New York: CUP.

Articles:

1. Acharya, Krishna P. 2004. “Does Community Forests Management Support Biodiversity Conservation? Evidences from two Community Forests from the Mid Hills of Nepal”. Journal of Forest and Livelihood. 4:1.

2. Bhattacharya, A. 2018. “In the Shadow of Tea: Agrarian Relations in Duars, 1870-1940”. Social Scientist. 46:3.85-106.

3. Chatterjee, P. 2026. “Mirroring Through Names: Parijat as Sakambari?”. In Manprasad Subba edited, Kalantar-3, 3, 39-47.

4. Choki, Kinley. 2021.“Cordyceps, climate change and cosmological imbalance in the Bhutan Highlands”. In Dan Smyer Yu and Erik de Maaker edited, Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas. New York: Routledge.

5. D’Rozario, P., and Kumar Mishra, D. S. 2021. “The Soil and Green Shoots: Ecocritical Reading of a Home in Tibet”. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) 6(3), 253-258.

6. Fromer, Julie E. 2008.“‘Deeply Indebted to the Tea-Plant’: Representations of English National Identity in Victorian Histories of Tea”. Victorian Literature and Culture. 36:2. 531-547.

7. Karlsson, B.G. 2016. “The Forest of Our Lives: In and Out of Political Ecology”. Conservation and Society. 14:4. 380-390.

8. Kikon, D., &Barbora, S. 2021. “The rehabilitation zone: Living with lemons and elephants in Assam”. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. 4(3), 1121–1138. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620946973

9. Molla, H.A. and B. Roy. 1984. “Folklore about some Medicinal Plants from the Tribal Areas of JalpaiguriDistrict,West Bengal”.Nelumbo.26(3)

10. Negi, G.C.S. 2022. “Tree, forest and people: The Central Himalayan case of forest ecosystem services”. Trees, forest and people. 8.

11. O’Brien, Seamus. 2017. “Retracing Joseph Hooker’s Routes in the Sikkim Himalaya”. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. 34:3. 175-189.

12. Poudel, Jiban Mani. 2009.“Cultural Understanding of Non-Timber Forest Products Among the Babuban Community People of Eastern Nepal”. Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology. 11.

13. Rajbhadary, S et. al. 2011. “Asian Begonia: Out of Africa via the Himalayas?”.Garden’s Bulletin. Singapore. 63. 277-286.

Retrieved from https://journal-repository.theshillonga.com/index.php/ijels/article/view/3699

14. Sengupta, Shalini. 2022. “ShaliniSengupta reviews Sumana Roy’s VIP- Very Important Plants”. Magma, 84: 82-84. Link: https://magmapoetry.com/shalini-sengupta-reviews-sumana-roys-vip-very-important-plant/

15. Singh, R.K. et.al.2013. “Elderly Adi Women of Arunachal Pradesh: “Living Encyclopedias” and Cultural Refugia in Biodiversity Conservation of the Eastern Himalaya, India”. Environmental Mangaement. 52: 712-735.

16. Subedi, Madhushudan. 2009. “Aromatic Plant Trade and Livelihood Strategies in Rural Nepal: A Case of Wintergreen in Dolakha District”. Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology. 11.

17. Tambe, Sandeep and G.S. Rawat. 2010. “The Alpine Vegetation of the Khangchendzonga Landscape, Sikkim Himalaya: Community Characteristics, Diversity, and Aspect of Ecology”. Mountain Research and Development. 30:3. 266-274.

18. Wangpan, Tonlong, et.al. 2017. “Tribal agriculture: tradition in transition in the Indian Eastern Himalaya”. Current Science. 112:7. 1327-1329.

19. Winkler, Daniel. 2008.“Yartsa Gunbu (Cordycepssinensis) and the Fungal Commodification of Tibet’s Rural Economy”. Economic Botany. 62:3. 291-305.

20. Yadav, R.R. et.al. 2021.“Climate Change and plant biodiversity in Himalaya, India”. Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy. 87. 234-259.

Botanical Investigations:

Books:

1. Biswas, K. 1956. Common Medicinal Plants of Darjeeling and the Sikkim Himalyas. WB Govt. Press.

2. Bhattarai, Tribikram and Chandra KiranShrestha. 2006. Annotated Bibliography on Traditional system of Medicine. Resource Centre for Primary Health care.

3. Bista, M.S and M.K. Adhikari ed. 2001. Flowering Plants of Nepal. Kathmandu:Department of Plant resources.

4. Jenkins, C.R. Fraser. 2015. Ferns and Fern-allies of Nepal, Vol. 1. Lalitpur: National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories.

5. Majupuria, Trilok Chandra and Rohit Kumar Majpuria. 1999. Nepal-Nature Paradise: Inside into Diverse Facts of Topography Flora and Ecology. M.Dwevi.

6. Manandhar, Narayan P. 2002. Plants and People of Nepal. Kathmandu: Timber Press.

Articles:

1. Bargali, H. et. al. 2021.“Plant studies in Himachal Pradesh, Western Himalaya: a systematic review”. Journal of Mountain Science.18. 1856-1873.

2. Bargali, Himanshu, et.al. 2022. “Plant Studies in Uttarakhand, Western Himalaya- A comprehensive review”. Trees, Forests and People. 8.

3. Bhattarai, KR. 2017. “Ethnomedical practices of Lepcha community in Ilam, Eastern Nepal”. Journal of Plant Resources. 15:1. 31-44.

4. Burkill, I.H.1908. “Notes on the pollination of flowers in India. Note no 5. Some autumn observations in the Sikkim Himalayas”. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 4: 179–195.

5. Chhetri, D.R., et.al. 2005. “Current status of Ethonomedicinal plants in Darjeeling Himalaya”. Current Science. 89:2. 264-268.

6. Chowdhury, M and A.P. Das. 2007. “Folk Medicine Used by the Rabha Tribe in Coochbehar District of West Bengal: a Preliminary Report”. Advances in Ethnobotany. Edited by A.P. Das and A.K. Pandey. 289-296.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-4-22

doi: https://doi.org/10.13057/asianjethnobiol/y050105.

7. Kunwar, Ripu M. et. al. 2018. “Cross-cultural comparison of plant used knowledge in Baitadi and Darchula districts, Nepal Himalaya”. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 14: 40. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-018-0242-7

8. Lepcha, TT, et.al. 2019. “Ethnomedicinal use of plants by Bhutan tribe in Sikkim Himalaya”. Proceedings of 1^st Himalayan Researchers Consortium. 1: 71-78.

9. Pradhan, B.K. and Hemant K. Badola. 2008. “Ethnomedicinal plant use by Lepcha tribe of Dzongu valley, bordering Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve, in North Sikkim, India”. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 4:22.

10. Rawat, D.S. 2010.“Uphill Journey of plants in the Himalaya”. Current Science. 99:12. 1644-1645.

11. Shankar, Uma. Et.al. 2003.“Temporal Patterns of Extraction of Non-Timber Forest Products in Chel Range of Darjeeling Himalaya”. Forests, Trees and Livelihoods. 13:2.

12. Singh, K.K. et. al. 2003.“Rhododendrons conservation in the Sikkim Himalaya”. Current Science. 85:5. 602-606.

13. Sundriyal, Manju, et.al. 2004. “Dietary Use of Wild Plant Resources in the Sikkim Himalaya, India”. Economic Botany. 58:4. 626-638.

14. Yangchen, Karma and Jigme. 2022. “An Ethnobotanical Study of Plants Used in Socio-religious Activities in Bhutan”. Asian Journal of Ethnobiology. 5:1.

15. Zahara, Kulsoom, et.al. 2014. “A review of therapeutic potential of Saussurealappa- An endangered plant from Himalaya”. Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine. 7: S60- S69.