155 ISSN: 2348-1900 Plant Science Today http://www.plantsciencetoday.online Research Article The role of Garo tribes of Meghalaya (India) in the conservation and management of medicinal plants diversity used in treating livestock diseases 1 D. B. Sangma, *2 T. N. Manohara 1 Rain Forest Research Institute, Jorhat, Assam 785001, India 2 Institute of Wood Science and Technology, Bengaluru 560 003, India Artic le history Rec eived: 15 August 2018 Accepted: 20 September 2018 Publis hed: 02 October 2018 Editor Dr. Shahina A Ghazanfar, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom Publisher Horizon e-Publishing Group *Correspondence T. N. Manohara manohara_tn@yahoo.com Abstract The Garo tribe of Meghalaya, India have rich local health traditions and large numbers of traditional healers have been practicing herbal medicines for many years. The present study aims at quantifying the plant species used for ethno-veterinary purposes and to identify their conservation status. Out of 90 informants 22 were traditional healers and 68 were farmers. A total of 75 ethnoveterinary medicinal plant species belonging to 71 genera and 49 families were documented and identified for treating 24 different livestock ailment. Most of the medicinal plants (83%) were collected from the wild and leaves were the most frequently used (58%) parts for formulation of drugs; oral application is most frequently employed (56%), followed by the dermal application which accounts for 31%. The medicinal plants collected are mostly trees (31%), followed by herbs (25%). The study indicates that some species are rare or endangered and their use is therefore unsustainable. The strategies for effective conservation of endangered medicinal plant are discussed here. Keywords Chinawood; Endangered; Ethnoveterinary; Traditional healers; West Garo Hills Citation Sangma D B, Manohara T N. The role of Garo tribes of Meghalaya (India) in the conservation and management of medicinal plants diversity used in treating livestock diseases. Plant Science Today 2018;5(4):155-162. https://dx.doi.org/10.14719/pst.2018.5.4.416 Copyright: © Sangma & Manohara (2018). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Introduction Medicinal plant and traditional knowledge occupies an important position in the socio-cultural, spiritual and medicinal arena of rural and tribal lives of India (1). There is a strong use of traditional knowledge-based home remedies for primary health care for humans as well as for the livestock using plant resources. The number of medicinal plants in India, both indigenous and introduced has been estimated to be between 3,000 to 3,500 species of higher plants (2). About 2,500 plants have been reported to be used in ethno-medicine (3). The State of Meghalaya, India has a diverse topography, altitude Horizon e-Publishing Group ISSN: 2348-1900 Plant Science Today (2018) 5(4): 155-162 https://dx.doi.org/10.14719/pst.2018.5.4.416