Indian Medicinal Plants Database (IMPLAD) and Threatened Medicinal Plants of India

Abstract

Medicinal plants have become of great relevance to the health care of the people, with a vast global population still relying on them. While developing the nation’s most comprehensive, multidisciplinary database on flora, fauna, metals, and minerals of traditional Materia Medica from primary texts over the period 1500 BC to 1900 AD, IMPLAD (Indian medicinal plants database) has grown into a multifaceted platform for research, education, and outreach. This has referenced searchable botanical information (botanical names and its synonyms, 200 thousands vernacular names in 32 Indian languages, distribution, threat status study, state inventories, GIS maps, plant images) and traditional knowledge (Sanskrit names, bibliography from 20 major classical texts of Indian systems of medicine Ayurveda, Ayurvedic pharmacology and pharmacopoeia data, original Sanskrit Shloka references, glossary of technical terms) of around 6500 medicinal plants of India. This facility has been empowering people with knowledge on traditional health care and natural resources as its one of the major objectives. It focuses on innovation, designing, and developing informatics facilities for the purpose of understanding, conserving, and propagating Indian systems of medicine, bearing in mind the requirements of education, research, and application in the sector. IMPLAD has improved our current understanding of medicinal plants and traditional knowledge in India and detailed field level information on many endangered species of conservation concern.