List of Medicinal Plants

Herbs are staging a comeback and herbal ‘renaissance’ is happening all over the globe. Over three-quarters of the world population relies mainly on plants and plant extracts for health care. More than 30% of the entire plant species, at one time or other, were used for medicinal purposes. It is estimated that world market for plant derived drugs may account for about Rs.2,00,000 crores. Presently, Indian contribution is less than Rs.2000 crores.

It has been estimated that in developed countries such as United States, plant drugs constitute as much as 25% of the total drugs, while in fast developing countries such as China and India, the contribution is as much as 80%. Thus, the economic importance of medicinal
plants is much more to countries such as India than to rest of the world. These countries provide two third of the plants used in modern system of medicine and the health care system of rural population depend on indigenous systems of medicine. Of the 2,50,000 higher plant species on earth, more than 80,000 are medicinal. India is one of the world’s 12 biodiversity centres with the presence of over 45000 different plant species. Only 7000-7500 species are used for their medicinal values by traditional communities.

In India, drugs ofherbal origin have been used in traditional systems of medicines such as Unani and Ayurveda since ancient times. The Ayurveda system of medicine uses about 700 species, Unani 700, Siddha 600, Amchi 600 and modern medicine around 30 species. The drugs are derived either from the whole plant or from different organs, like leaves, stem, bark, root, flower, seed, etc. Some drugs are prepared from excretory plant product such as gum, resins and latex. Even the Allopathic system of medicine has adopted a number of plant-derived drugs Some important chemical intermediates needed for manufacturing the modern drugs are also obtained from plants (Eg. diosgenin, solasodine, b-ionone).

List of Medicinal Plants

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