Ethnophytotoxicological assessment of toxic flora in Samba District, J&K: The 'first' voucher-linked baseline study

Phytotoxins-bearing flora in agro-pastoral landscapes poses persistent veterinary and zoonotic risks, yet no voucher-verified, georeferenced inventory of toxic flora existed for District Samba, U.T. J&K, India. Systematic ethnobotanical surveys were conducted across all nine administrative blocks (January 2023-December 2025), targeting agricultural margins, scrublands, riparian corridors, grasslands and forest ecotones. A total of 93 toxic taxa were GPS-georeferenced, photographed in situ and taxonomically resolved against Plants of the World Online and IPNI; voucher specimens were deposited at the Herbarium, Department of Botany, University of Jammu (HBJU, 18104-18139, 18144-18180, 18308-18323, 18560-18565; Certificate Nos. 010 - 012, 017, 022). An ethnoveterinary survey of 182 informants recruited via purposive and snowball sampling, documented locally perceived phytotoxicity across 16 emic ailment categories; consensus was quantified using Informant Consensus Factor (ICF), use-reports (N_ur), and taxon counts (N_t). Literature-corroborated toxicological annotation revealed predominantly organ-specific phytotoxicity (76.5%), with seeds (37.1%) and latex (21.0%) as the principal toxic compartments; these annotations constitute a secondary evidence layer linked to voucher-confirmed occurrence, not direct phytochemical validation. Highest informant consensus was recorded for cardiac toxicity (ICF = 0.98; N_t = 2; N_ur = 42), CNS-related effects (ICF = 0.97; N_t = 3; N_ur = 69), dermatological and hepatotoxic sequelae (ICF = 0.95 each), and gastrointestinal intoxication (ICF = 0.92; N_t = 35; N_ur = 443). Statistical analysis using JASP (v0.96.0.0) confirmed the internal consistency of the dataset with informant knowledge of toxic flora differing significantly by age (F_6,175 = 13.49, p < 0.001) and gender (t₁₈₀ = -9.652, p < 0.001); peak phytotoxicological knowledge was concentrated in the 56-65-year cohort, indicative of elder-held expertise in plant-derived toxin recognition. This study constitutes the first voucher-verified toxic flora for District Samba, providing a reproducible baseline for phytotoxins surveillance, livestock poisoning risk mitigation and evidence-based prioritization of candidate taxa for targeted phytochemical and toxicological characterization.