A Thorny Shrub That Survives −43°C Just Got a Geographical Indication

Article summary

Seabuckthorn from Spiti has been granted Geographical Indication status. The plant, Hippophae rhamnoides of the family Elaeagnaceae, is known variously as the Wonder Plant, Ladakh Gold, Golden Bush and, in Himachal Pradesh, Chharma. In India it grows above the tree line across Ladakh, Spiti, Lahaul, Kinnaur, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and is distributed widely through Europe and Asia. Its characteristics explain both names and value: it tolerates temperatures from about −43°C to 40°C, grows from half a metre to six metres and occasionally ten, withstands saline soils, requires full sunlight, and colonises dry sandy tracts, hillsides, valleys and riverbeds. Its orange to yellow berries are sharply sour, exceptionally rich in vitamin C, and persist on the branch through subzero winter. Ecologically it does three things that matter in a cold desert: it fixes atmospheric nitrogen through its root system, binds soil against erosion, and provides habitat and winter forage in a landscape with little of either. The GI tag, granted under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, gives producers in the defined region exclusive right to the name and the premium it can command.