DOI: 10.36347/sajb.2015.v03i12.012

Pages: 1044-1050

Being a part of the state of Assam all the districts of Western Assam are also very much suitable for growth and survival of several diversified plant species. This part is found to be rich by its wild edible plants as a whole and wild edible vegetable in particular. A large number of wild plants are used by various communities of various districts of Western Assam from time immemorial. In this paper an attempt has been made to document all the aspects of wild vegetables including botanical name, local name, family, mode of preparation if possible medicinal properties also. So, the objective of this paper is to document the wild plant species used as vegetable by various communities of different districts of Western Assam. The tribal as well as other common peoples of this region commonly use some wild plants in their regular dish. They consume these plants or plant parts after boiling or frying or preparing curry or chutneys or as raw. Various plant parts of course are consumed following various processes which vary according to species or parts of the plant as well as it vary according to the tribes and communities who use the items. Leaves of some plant species are fried after cutting finely, flowers are also seen to be consumed for some species, in some cases rhizome, corm, stolon, and petiole of leaves inflorescence or even the whole plant. Thus it varies according to the consumable plant species. Though these plants are used as vegetable but they bear some medicinal properties besides being nutritious. The study records 75 species of such plants which are consumed following different processes in different districts of this Western part of Assam.