Medicinal plants provide indigenous and peasant communities worldwide with means to meet their healthcare needs. Homegardens often act as medicine cabinets, providing easily accessible medicinal plants for household needs. Social structure and social exchanges have been proposed as factors influencing the species diversity that people maintain in their homegardens. Here, we assess the associati...

Saleem Mushtaq, Qazi Parvaiz Hassan, Rashmi Sharma, Rabiya Majeed, Abid Hamid Dar, Phalisteen Sultan, Inshad Ali Khan, Sheikh Abid Ali & Md Niamat Ali Biotechnology Division, CSIR Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Sanatnagar, Srinagar190005, India; Centre of Research for Development (CORD), University of Kashmir, Srinagar190006, India; Clinical Microbiology Division, CSIRIndian Institut...

AIM OF THE STUDY The survey aims to study the effect of geographic separation of ethnic groups on local knowledge of medicinal plants used by Akha people in Thailand and China, who were separated 100-120 years ago, to see how different the two geographically distinct but culturally similar groups were in this respect. MATERIALS AND METHODS Interviewing 10 villagers in each of five Akha villag...

We analyzed ethnobotanical data on Kansas plants to evaluate differences among families for medicinal uses by Native Americans. We compared three different statistical methods used in previous ethnobotanical studies for use in our Native Medicinal Plant Research Program, which seeks to determine which plant families are more likely to contain species with medicinal compounds. The three approach...

Drugs of Natural origin have been used since ancient times as medicines for treating range of diseases. Medicinal plants have played a key role in world health. In spite of the great advances observed in modern medicine in recent decades, plants still make an important contribution to health care. Each plant is like factory capable of synthesizing unlimited number of highly complex and unusual ...

Bioactive compounds of medicinal herbs have possible health benefits with antioxidative, anticarcinogenic, antihypertensive, antimutagenic and antimicrobial activities. Iranian folk medicine is rich of various herbs which have been employed as drug for treatment of various diseases and disorders since ancient times. The present paper provides a brief overview of the medicinal benefits of some i...

Semecarpus anacardium Linn. (Family: Anacardiaceae), commonly known 'Ballataka' or 'Bhilwa', is a plant well-known for its medicinal value in ayurvedic and siddha system of medicine, it is also used for non-medicinal purpose like marking of cloth, hair dye etc since ancient time. Phytochemical analyses of Semecarpus anacardium nut shows that, its nut contain a variety of biologically active com...

Nature has provided a complete storehouse of remedies to cure ailments of mankind. About 80% of the world's population depends wholly or partially on traditional medicine for its primary health care needs. Pharmacognosy is mainly concerned with naturally occurring substances having a medicinal action. Morphological and anatomical characters play a vital role in crude drug standardization. Howev...

In traditional herbal medicine, comprehensive understanding of bioactive constituent is important in order to analyze its true medicinal function. We investigated the chemical properties of medicinal and edible ginger cultivars using a liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) approach. Our PCA results indicate the importance of acetylated derivatives of gingerol, not gingerol or shogaol,...

Herbs used in traditional medicine have provided a nidus for the discovery of various new molecules having therapeutic viability. With the advent of various diseases, the science has also armed itself to combat the everevolving family of diseases with the help of these new molecules. Cancer is one such area which has limited scope for management through conventional therapy. Recent research adv...