**1. Introduction**

The knowledge of using of plants and herbs as medicines and for the treatment of many kinds of diseases and for healthy living is handed over from generation to generation in all the communities. Numerous traditional uses of plants and herbs for medicinal purposes have been documented and published time by time. Mankind has been continuously using the medicinal plants in several ways for treating of various ailments and for cosmetics purposes. In India, the sacred Vedas dating back between 3500 B.C and 800 B.C gave many references of medicinal plants. "Virikshayurveda is one of the oldest works in traditional herbal medicine in India, which is compiled even before the beginning of Christian era and it formed the basis of medicinal studies in ancient India. Knowledge of herbs has been handed down from generation to generation for thousands of years and herbal drugs constitute a major part in all traditional systems of medicines. Plants have been used for medicine from time

immemorial because they are easily accessible and cheap and above all they were the only means for healthcare. Recently, there has been a tremendous increase in the use of herbal products in many countries, both developing and developed, which resulted in an exponential growth of herbal products globally. Herbal medicines have a strong traditional or conceptual base and the potential for them to be useful as drugs in terms of safety and effectiveness, leads for treating different diseases. Many of the population in the developing and underdeveloped countries still depend on herbal medicine where access to modern medicine is little [1]. Plants continue to serve as possible sources for developing new drugs from the chemicals derived from various parts of plants. In recent time there has been a marked shift towards herbal cures because of the adverse and noticeable side effects of modern drugs. However, due to increase in population, deforestation, roads and railways, urbanization and unsustainable harvesting and collection from the wild, many useful plant species along with their uses are disappearing every day. Unsustainable and injudicious extractions of these medicinal plants have pushed some of the important species towards extinction. An important anti cancerous plant, *Taxus wallichiana* Zuccarini was pushed towards endangerment due to injudicious harvesting and collection of Paclitaxel (Taxol), the most effective anti cancerous compound used for treating a variety of cancers [2, 3]. This species was extracted in large scale from the wild injudiciously for its anti-cancerous properties during 1980s which led endangered status at present [4]. It has become the most threatened species and has been categorized as endangered by the IUCN [5]. Today, history is again repeating for many other species, including *Paris polyphylla* Smith. In this context, I would like to bring forth an important threatened medicinal plant species (*Paris polyphylla*) found in North eastern part of India in the foothills of Himalayan which has been very less documented and evaluated but talking of its importance, it's a plant with varied medicinal uses and great demand in the market.

*Paris polyphylla* is a rhizomatous herbaceous species belonging to Melanthiaceae family. The genus comprises of 24 species, which are distributed in Bhutan, China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and Europe [6]. China has the highest number of species (22 species) with 12 endemic species. In India the genus is represented by 2 species, *viz. P*. *polyphylla* and *P*. *thibetica* with about 6 intraspecific taxa (**Table 1**) [6].

As of May 2012 the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) recognizes several varieties [8, 9].


Paris polyphylla*: An Important Endangered Medicinal Plants of Himalayan Foothills DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102920*


#### **Table 1.**

*Geographical distribution and availability of* P. polyphylla *in India.*

The Flora of China recognizes five additional varieties, three of which are placed in different species by the WCSP:

