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Herbs are plants grown for any purpose
other than food, wood or beauty. Such uses include culinary,
medicinal, or in some cases even spiritual usage. The green,
leafy part of the plant is typically used. General, usage
differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs. A medicinal
herb may be a shrub or other woody plant, whereas a culinary
herb is a non-woody plant. By contrast, spices are the seeds,
berries, bark, root, fruit, or other parts of the plant, even
leaves in some cases; although any of these, as well as any
edible fruits or vegetables, may be considered "herbs"
in medicinal or spiritual use. Culinary herbs are distinguished
from vegetables in that they are used in small amounts and
provide flavor (similar to spices) rather than substance to
food.
The herbs which are mentioned in
this section are grown at village Supi where TERI has its
Himalayan developmental center. The herbs are also processed
and are available for sale in the products section under organic
crops. TERI aims at promoting and selling these organic crops
as they add positive value to the whole chain right from farmers
to the end consumers.
Any plant which provides health-promoting characteristics,
temporary relief or symptomatic problems or has curative properties
and is grown for medicinal purposes can be termed as medicinal
plants.
Indian people have an incredible
knowledge of phyto-medicine driven apparently by a great passion
for study of medicinal plants. This is evident both in the
living folk traditions in the rural communities as well as
the scholarly traditions of the codified knowledge systems
- i.e., Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Tibetan. Probably, no
other medical culture in the world has such extensive, detailed
and deep understanding about medicinal value of plants.
According to an all India Ethnobotanical
Survey conducted by the Ministry of Environment (1985-90),
there are 6000 species of medicinal plants in India which
can be used by traditional practitioners in tribal areas and
other village communities.
The set of plants included on this
site are the ones which are being cultivated by TERI at its
research station at Supi in Nainital district in Uttaranchal
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