Health Benefits, Utilization and Characterization of Rhododendron arboreum (Ericaceae)

Rhododendron arboreum is a small tree, mostly found in the mountain areas with pale pink or deep pink flowers, widely spread throughout the world. It is a member of the Ericaceae family, and it is well-known for its lovely flowers. R. arboreum species is distributed widely among the 80°N and 20°S latitudes and is designated as ‘State flower’ of Himachal Pradesh (India) and ‘National flower’ of Nepal. Due to its many inherent phytochemical properties, it is used as a treatment for various diseases such as bacterial infection, diarrhoea, and headache, infamy, and fungal infections. The people living in the mountainous area historically use the flowers of this plant to make variety of products viz. juice, squash, jelly, syrup, pickle, honey. R. arboreum have several important polyphenolic and bioactive compounds such as saponins, flavonoids and steroids. This review highlights Rhododendron's nutritional properties, potential properties and medicinal properties and various products developed, which boost livelihoods of the rural tribal community for sustainable growth and treatment of various diseases.

Extraction of Rhododendron arboreum Smith flowers from the forest for the livelihood and rural income in Garhwal Himalaya, India

Rhododendron arboreum locally known as ‘Burans', that bears magnificent flowers is one of the valuable non timber forest produces (NTFPs) in Garhwal Himalaya. These flowers are good source of income for local populace and help them to their subsistence up to some extent. R. arboreum flower can help local population to improve their livelihoods if potential harvesting is carried out sustainably. An attempt has been made to estimate the flower yield, examine extraction techniques, marketing trends and various uses of flowers. Stratified random sampling method was carried out in eight sites varying in altitudes and geographic locations. Flower yield kg/ha for each site was calculated as standard process. Questionnaire based survey was carried out in selected villages for flower extraction and marketing trends. Projections of potential (probable/-could generate) income were made and cost–benefit analysis was also estimated. Tree density of R. arboreum ranked first and Q. leucotrichophora had second rank while 16–25 cm cbh class tree density for R. arboreum was found highest across the sites. Flower yield was significantly (p < 0.001) higher at Khirsu site with 26–35 and 46–55 cm cbh class. There was positively significant correlation (n = 446, p < 0.001, r = 0.53) between flower yield and actual cbh. Flower yield has a direct relation with size of tree whereas yield has been less impacted by the sites. Average yield of flowers across the sites was about 25.3 ton/ha. On average 30% households are engaged in the extraction and trade activities with the extraction rate of 25–350 kg/household/year. A net household income of Rs. 6000–37,000 (89–545 USD) per year was computed from Rhododendron flower extraction and marketing business. The total monetary benefit was significantly higher than the inputs for all value added items on a per day basis. R. arboreum plays important role in ecological and economic sustainability of poor rural people and unemployed youths in Himalayan region. This can reduce unemployment through development of small cottage industry and entrepreneurship at village level by making different food products i.e. juice, squash, sauce and pickle etc.

Rhododendron arboreum: A critical review on phytochemicals, health benefits and applications in the food processing industrie

: Rhododendron is a resourceful, evergreen shrub or a small tree with an ornate display of scarlet red or pale pink flowers that belongs to the family Ericaceae. Rhododendron plants are traditionally being used for the medicinal treatment of numerous human ailments like blood dysentery, headache, asthma, cough, stomachache, fever, inflammation, and fungal infections. Rhododendron also has economic, medicinal, and pharmacological importance. Rhododendron has been regarded as a rich source of secondary metabolites. Apart from aesthetic and sacred values, from past times, Rhododendron juice was prepared from the flowers to curb allergies, treat diabetes, and to deal with inflammations. Recent studies have shown several promising activities particularly relaxant, digestive enzyme, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antispasmodic, anticancer, and antagonistic effects. With the rapidly growing popularity of Rhododendron arboreum it is important to have a comprehensive reference for its nutritional benefits with the growing search for natural and health foods. This work aimed to review the recent advances in research carried out to date for purposive evaluation of nutritional quality and potential health benefits of Rhododendron arboreum for its utilization in food processing industries for composing novel value-added products, to achieve high consumer acceptability and health benefits.

Integrating Multi-Sensors Data for Species Distribution Mapping Using Deep Learning and Envelope Models

The integration of ecological and atmospheric characteristics for biodiversity management is fundamental for long-term ecosystem conservation and drafting forest management strategies, especially in the current era of climate change. The explicit modelling of regional ecological responses and their impact on individual species is a significant prerequisite for any adaptation strategy. The present study focuses on predicting the regional distribution of Rhododendron arboreum, a medicinal plant species found in the Himalayan region. Advanced Species Distribution Models (SDM) based on the principle of predefined hypothesis, namely BIOCLIM, was used to model the potential distribution of Rhododendron arboreum. This hypothesis tends to vary with the change in locations, and thus, robust models are required to establish nonlinear complex relations between the input parameters. To address this nonlinear relation, a class of deep neural networks, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture is proposed, designed, and tested, which eventually gave much better accuracy than the BIOCLIM model. Both of the models were given 16 input parameters, including ecological and atmospheric variables, which were statistically resampled and were then utilized in establishing the linear and nonlinear relationship to better fit the occurrence scenarios of the species. The input parameters were mostly acquired from the recent satellite missions, including MODIS, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-5p, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), and ECOSTRESS. The performance across all the thresholds was evaluated using the value of the Area Under Curve (AUC) evaluation metrics. The AUC value was found to be 0.917 with CNN, whereas it was 0.68 with BIOCLIM, respectively. The performance evaluation metrics indicate the superiority of CNN for species distribution over BIOCLIM.

​Application of Rhododendron for Human Welfare: A Review

National flower of Nepal and Uttarakhand is Rhododendron arboreum locally called buransh, a small tree with bright red flowers and green leaves. Rhododendron is derived from a Greek word RHODO and DENDRON which means rose-tree is used traditionally as medicine and also as food. Buransh normally grows in Himalayas, at high altitude is being used popularly for its processed juice from flowers as buransh or sharbat and in medicines that has many health benefits. Burans products are also used in decorations, refreshing drinks, firewood and as food colouring agents. Its numerous use also include in treatment of bile’s and liver disorders, nasal bleeding, blood dysentery, stomach ache, asthma, fever, gout, coughs, blurry vision, heart problems and diabetes. This review focuses on the phytochemical and nutrition profile, pharmacological and biological properties of Rhododendron arboreum in sustainable development of rural population with many job opportunities.

Chemical Constituents and Therapeutic Properties of Himalayan Rhododendron Arboreum - Review

ABSTRACT Nature has plentiful plant sources to fulfil the needs of human beings in terms of food and medicines. Rhododendron tree is one of them. The literature reviewed from online resources suggests that Rhododendron arboretum belongs to family Ericaceae and bears pale pink to deep red colour flowers. It is a national flower of Nepal and a state flower of Uttarakhand. The flowers generally blossom in the months of March to April and June to September. Rhododendron contains significant amount of minerals and many phytochemicals and secondary metabolites like alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, saponins, tannins and steroids. Rhododendron arboreum has various therapeutic properties like anti-diabetic property, anti- inflammatory property, antioxidant property, anti-hyperlipidemic property, anti-cancerous property, cardio protective properties. People of India use it in preparation of many valued products like jellies, squashes, ready to serve drinks etc. But their commercialized value added products are not available. This study suggests for more extensive studies on development of commercial product for utilization of its nutritional and therapeutic value.