From the very early times, human beings have co-existed with nature and plants have played a crucial role in their survival, providing the basics of life such as food, shelter, medicine, clothing, etc. Through a long process of trial and error, our prehistoric ancestors were able to select hundreds of wild plants in various parts of the world for their specific use to man. The information on the economic front of plant use was passed from one generation to the next orally through the words of mouth or without any published records.

The term ethnobotany was first used by the US botanist Dr John W. Harshberger in 1895 to indicate plants used by the aboriginal peoples or tribals. In 1874, Stephen Powers had coined the term ‘aboriginal botany’ to describe the study of all forms of plants life that the aborigines or tribal people used for food, medicine, textile, ornaments, etc. However, in 1916 Robbins et al. defined ethnobotany in a broader sense, that is, from beyond mere identification and cataloguing of plants used by primitive societies to the study and evaluation of the knowledge of all aspects of plant life amongst tribals, together with the effect of vegetal environment upon life, customs, beliefs and history of such societies. C.B. Heiser, Jr. (1995) defined ethnobotany as to the study of wild and cultivated plants in relation to people. According to Jones (1941), ethnobotany should not be concerned only with the uses of plants, but the entire range or gamut of relations between the primitive man and plants. According to Richard Evans Schultes, Harvard University educator (often called the father of ethnobotany), the term ethnobotany simply means investigating plants used by primitive societies in various parts of the world.

Different tribal communities of the world have their own culture, customs, rites, taboos, totems, myths, folk tales and songs, witchcraft or other religious or sacred activities, food, etc. The biological environment in which such ethnic tribes live have a direct impact on the evolution of above practices, and it also sustains the cultural, spiritual and economic needs of indigenous people. In other words, the plants are part and parcel of tribal lives from birth to death.This interrelationship has evolved over generations of experience and practices.