author(s)
Meesala Krishna Murthy, Pratima Khandayataray, Lalhmanghai Ralte, Ramachandra Laha and Dibyaranjan Samal

abstract
Honey is mostly used for human nutrition due to its therapeutic properties. Honey is produced from living parts, nectar of plants and also from plant sucking insect’s excreation. Honey is sweet in taste, produced by honey bees. In the current study, we investigated ribulose-Bisphosphate carboxylase gene (RBC L) coding region ability to identify the plant species/botanical composition/pollen origins in multi flower honey. Honey also shows diverse plant compositions in diverse geographical locations. We collected 19 honey samples in Aizawl (AZL; 23.72^â—¦ & 92.71^â—¦) and Champhai (23.45^â—¦ & 93.32^â—¦), Mizoram, India, were examined by using the rbcL coding regions as barcode markers. A DNA barcoding reference database was retrieved from Gen Bank, NCBI and used for identification of the plant species/pollen origin/taxonomic/botanical composition in multiflower honey in Mizoram, Northeast India (NEI). Our results showed that total 11 plant species were recognized in two honey sample districts (AZL and Champhai). All 11 plant species were emerged from a mix of common plants belonging to Betulaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Juglandaceae, Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Berberidaceae, Lacistemataceae, and Paracryphiaceae taxa respectively. In two different honey sampling districts, at least 1 endemic plant was found which in turn giving a clear cut geographical origin and botanical composition/pollen origin of these honeys products. Further, the rbcL barcode was found to be effective in identifying the true botanical origin of honey samples with 99 to 100 percent confidence with E- value is about 0.0 mostly.