The Medical and Aromatic Plant Garden and (right) johapat grass. Telegraph pictures

Aug. 16: Next time you are in an exotic roadside dhaba eating joha saulor bhat, there are a few things you need to figure out: is there a johamal sitting behind the bush or have they put in two little bits of johapat or is this truly joha saul?

If Lakhaman Teron’s plantation sees the light of the day, someday the dhabas will serve johapat with ordinary rice instead of joha saul.

Here are the specifics: joha saul (joha rice) are small grains of rice famous for their sweet aroma, johamal (civet cat) is an animal of the cat family that smells like joha saul and johapat is a kind of grass which also smells like joha saul.

Teron, a nature lover, has recently found a few samples of johapat after searching for two years. Finally, he found it in a village and sent it to Medical and Aromatic Plant Garden set up by the Guwahati wildlife division at Chakardo near Lokhra. This almost-extinct grass will be nurtured in the garden.

“Two to three leaves of johapat are enough to give the aroma of joha saul to around one kg of rice. This grass was available in this area earlier but now it is becoming extinct. Later, we came to know that a few of them survived in a family in Singra village near Boko from where we have brought a few of them to grow here,” Teron said.

“We are now looking for cinchona tree, which is used to make quinine (to treat malaria patients) . Whenever we get the leaves, we bring them immediately to the garden,” Teron said.

There is panmasala, a shrub whose aroma is similar to that of cumin and one of its leaves can be used as mouth freshener instead of a pinch of cumin after taking food. Right now, four panmasala shrubs are being nurtured in the garden.

Earlier, around 146 species were brought to the garden. Johapat, xonpera, kenari, motha, xagorfena, ponjari tenga are some of the new additions to the garden. Recently kenari, a kind of aromatic plant from whose root a garland is made to heal a kind of specific fever, was also added to the garden.

Similarly, xonpera is another plant that was added to the list of plants. Because of its aroma the root of xonpera is used as spice in preparing non-vegetarian food. It was also collected from the Boko area.

The garden, spanning an area of about three hectares, was set up to facilitate researchers who visit Deepor Beel to study its flora and fauna. Attracting more tourists, create awareness on conserving the Ramsar site and help the young generation identify these species were also reasons behind setting up of the garden.

The garden is also home to a few endangered species of trees including Nagphani and Bogasandan. Some other important plants which are grown at the garden are Cassia fistula (known as the golden shower tree), Withania somnifera (known as ashwagandha) and Rauvolfia serpentina (sarpagandha).

Subarna Rabha, an employee of the garden, said a little more care by the government would help the garden enrich its collection of the rarest medicinal and aromatic plants in the state.