Ethnobotanical studies have sparked several promising drug research endeavours in the current era of pharmaceutical chemistry (Namsa et al., 2011, Rupani and Chavez, 2018, Nandy et al., 2020). It includes the use of plants by both tribal and non-tribal communities without any inference of primordial societies (Wickens, 1990, Suthari et al., 2021) while the term ethnobotany also refers to the study of the knowledge system pertaining to the multidimensional perception of life, culture, traditions as well as interaction of traditional human communities with their local flora or fauna (Pushpangadan, 1990, Nolan and Turner, 2011, Gaoue et al., 2017). Medicinal plants are used as traditional medicine to cure various human ailments and the utilisation of medicinal plants against a multiplicity of diseases has a long history in human civilisation, which dates back to the time when people were in quest of remedies in their environment to help them recover from sickness (Mashelkar, 2001, Bouyahya et al., 2017, Jamshidi-Kia et al., 2017). In the last few years, researchers have given more attention to the utilisation of ethnobotanical knowledge on medicinal plants (Heinrich, 2013) as pharmaceutical businesses often employ this primary knowledge for drug manufacturing (Hassan et al., 2020, Lal et al., 2023).

People in the Himalayas effectively practice intrinsic acquaintance for the healthcare system and have an affluent repository of medicinal plants (Chauhan, 1999, Dutt et al., 2011, Tiwari et al., 2020). Native people of remote villages of the Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh cure many diseases through herbal medicines on their own. Skin diseases are one of them such as injuries, cuts and wounds; itching and boils; skin care; eczema; ringworm; abscess/swellings; skin affections; acne/pimples; leprosy; skin eruptions; scabies and burns that are gradually becoming trouble on health. Skin diseases occur globally and account to be around 34% of all the occupational diseases encountered (Abbasi et al., 2010, Ajjoun et al., 2022). Even though the mortality rate for skin diseases is very less, that is, 2 if the disease continues for a long time, it significantly affects the quality of life (Aldeen et al., 2020). For curing skin diseases, traditional knowledge of locally available plants plays a significant role to mitigate skin disorders in different regions of our country and nearby countries as reported by many workers (Upadhyay et al., 1998, Begum and Nath, 2000, Saikia et al., 2006, Abbasi et al., 2010, Korpenwar, 2012, Kumar et al., 2012, Aniel Kumar et al., 2015, Mowobi et al., 2016, Kianifar et al., 2019, Mahato et al., 2019, Kunwar et al., 2020).

In the northwestern Indian Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh is considered one of the richest sources of traditional and prospective medicines. The state has significant plant diversity, including endemic and endangered species, due to its varying altitudinal gradients and climatic conditions (Kumar et al., 2021). Some previous reports are available on the useful indigenous information on the medicinal benefits of plants in other districts of Himachal Pradesh (Dutt et al., 2011, Rani et al., 2013, Thakur et al., 2014, Dey et al., 2023, Sharma et al., 2024). However, Sirmour district in the southernmost part of Himachal Pradesh has been overlooked in this regard. However, few studies were carried out by Saini and Sood (2023) in a particular region of the district on skin problems; some studies on liver and kidney problems (Singhal, 2019) were carried out in tehsil Paonta Sahib of district Sirmour; some studies on ethnoveterinary plants of Renuka tehsil of Sirmour district were carried out by Singhal et al. (2024). But, till now, detailed studies on skin problems of the Sirmour district were not undertaken. The present study is focused on the Sirmour district due to its larger area and aims to determine the conventional knowledge and identify the utilisation of medicinal plants for skin treatment and care in the Sirmour district. The key intention of the research is to unfurl the assets of traditional medicinal plants and make it available to others for future usage.