Integrated Approach for the Quality Assurance of Commercially Important Himalayan Medicinal Plants

The gradual growth of the herbal drug industries has necessitated the need for the quality control measures for the quality assessment of herbal preparations. This has resulted in the employment of a comprehensive set of analytical methods that helps to give a complete picture of the quality of herbal material in terms of its phytochemical composition and chemo taxonomical origin. Hence, this chapter discusses the issue of adulteration and also elaborates on the integrated analytical approach which has come out as a comprehensive tool in the assessment of botanicals authenticity. Twelve commercially important Himalayan medicinal plants whose trade volume exceeds 100 metric tons annually has been discussed. Although, various efforts have already been made towards the quality assessment of these commercially important Himalayan medicinal plants, the integrated set of analytical methods discussed in this chapter can be applied for the complete assessment of their authenticity to further enhance their trade volume in the international market.