Lesser Himalayas (Pakistan)
More actions
| Lesser Himalayas | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| |
| Terraced fields and houses on the Shimla hills of Abbottabad | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 34.41, 73.24 |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Area | 10,600 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Lesser Himalayas is a landrace cannabis growing region of wild hemp in northern Pakistan. It covers Murree District in Punjab and the Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Battagram and Torghar districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and holds the growing areas of Murree Hills and Kaghan Valley. In June and July 2023 Muhammad Younas and colleagues sampled wild hemp at fifteen places in the Murree hills and in the Abbottabad and Haripur districts.[1] According to a flora of Mansehra district published in 1993, the plant, called bhang, grew wild throughout the district.[2]: 70
Extent
Younas and colleagues, following a 1991 study of the region's ecology and vegetation by F. Hussain and I. Ilahi, divide the Himalayan range in Pakistan into three zones. The middle zone, the Lesser Himalayas, rises to between 2,000 and 3,000 m and covers the Hazara division, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, about 23,295 km² in all. Below it the Sub-Outer Himalayas, 8 to 48 km wide, take in the Hazara–Murree, Rawalpindi and Pabbi slopes.[1]
The border of the growing region follows whole districts: Murree District, with its two tehsils of Murree and Kotli Sattian, and the Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Battagram and Torghar districts. Islamabad and the rest of Rawalpindi District lie in the Potohar Plateau growing region, and the three Kohistan districts of the Hazara division in Kohistan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). Azad Kashmir, administered by Pakistan, is not part of the region.
Wild hemp
The 2023 survey
Younas and colleagues sampled 35 wild populations between 14 June and 29 July 2023, on the Potohar Plateau and in the Lesser Himalayas.[1] Fifteen of their sites lie in this region:[1]
- in Murree District, Murree, Lower Topa, Bhorban, Pagwari, Patriata and Kotli Satian;
- in Abbottabad District, Abbottabad, Havelian, Nathia Gali and Thandiani;
- in Haripur District, Haripur, Khanpur, Hattar and Ghazi;
- and Kohala.
The highest stood at Nathia Gali, at about 2,400 m.[1] The authors write that the wild races of the plant grow commonly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Islamabad.[1]
They scored 16 traits of the plants and sorted the 35 populations into three clusters. The coolest and most humid cluster, with relative humidity above 64 per cent and an average temperature below 15 °C, held seven sites, all in this region: Murree, Lower Topa, Bhorban, Patriata, Abbottabad, Nathia Gali and Thandiani. The other sites of the region fell into the two warmer clusters with the populations of the plateau. Plant height, stem diameter and the numbers of leaves and branches fell with altitude and humidity and rose with the average temperature. The authors call the populations native landraces of Cannabis sativa.[1]
Mansehra and the Kaghan Valley
In 1993 Imtiaz-ul-Haq and Manzoor Hussain described the medicinal plants of Mansehra district, which then had three tehsils: Mansehra, Batagram and Balakot. They give Cannabis sativa the names bhang in Urdu, Hindko and Pashto, and write that it grows wild throughout the area. Its leaves and flowering tops were used: the plant served as fuel, its leaves were crushed with onion into a poultice for boils, the dried leaves were taken as a drink, and charas was collected from it and smoked.[2]: 63, 70
A survey of the poisonous plants of the Kaghan Valley, in the north of Mansehra District, collected the plant there in 2012–13.[3]
Growing Areas
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Area | Appellation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NPG-PAK-UNK-0020230002 | Murree General Population | Murree Hills | ||
| NPG-PAK-UNK-0020230004 | Shugran General Population | Kaghan Valley | ||
| NPG-PAK-UNK-0020260002 | Shugran (Wild) General Population | Kaghan Valley |
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Younas, M.; Qureshi, R.; van Velzen, R.; Mashwani, Z.R.; Saqib, Z.; et al. (2024). "Geo-climatic factors co-drive the phenotypic diversity of wild hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) in the Potohar Plateau and Lesser Himalayas". BMC Plant Biology. 24 (1) 1031. doi:10.1186/s12870-024-05730-0.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Imtiaz-ul-Haq; Hussain, Manzoor (1993). "Medicinal plants of Mansehra" (PDF). Hamdard Medicus. 36 (3): 63–100.
- ↑ Kayani, S.; Ahmad, M.; Hussain, M.; Zafar, M.; Khan, M. A.; Shah, G. M. (2017). "Ethnotoxic profile of poisonous plants of Kaghan Valley, Western Himalayas, Pakistan" (PDF). Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences. 27 (1): 128–135.