The Importance Of Medicinal Plants

Plants are the primary producers in Earth’s ecosystem. Plants are autotropic, meaning they can produce their own food by the process of photosynthesis and as a result ultimately produce food for the ecosystem’s consumers. Understanding plant function is the key to enhancing crop production, medicine production, preservation of plant bio diversity etc. The plant kingdom is a treasure house of potential drugs and in the recent years there has been an increasing awareness about the importance of medicinal plants. Drugs from the plants are easily available, less expensive, safe, and efficient and rarely have side effects. The plants which have been selected for medicinal use over thousands of years constitute the most obvious choice of examining

However, such plants should be investigated to better understand their properties, safety, and efficiency. Medicinal plants contain some organic compounds which provide definite physiological action on the human body and these bioactive substances include tannins, alkaloids, carbohydrates, terpenoids, steroids and flavonoids. These compounds are synthesized by primary or rather secondary metabolism of living organisms. Secondary metabolites are chemically and taxonomically extremely diverse compounds with obscure function. They are widely used in the human therapy, veterinary, agriculture, scientific research and countless other areas . A large number of phytochemicals belonging to several chemical classes have been shown to have inhibitory effects on all types of microorganisms in vitro. Plant products have been part of phytomedicines since time immemorial. This can be derived from barks, leaves, flowers, roots, fruits, seeds. Knowledge of the chemical constituents of plants is desirable because such information will be valuable for the synthesis of complex chemical

Flavonoids, alkaloids, carotenoids, tannin, antioxidants and phenolic compounds are some of the bioactive substances that can be found in plants. Phytochemicals are active constituents. They are not essential nutrients. The chemical entities that are solely responsible for existing pharmacological, microbial or in broader-sense therapeutic activities are usually termed as active constituents.[1] These phytochemicals provide health benefits for humans in addition to those offered by micronutrients and macro nutrients. They protect plants from diseases and damage and contribute to the plant’s colour, aroma and flavor. So, generally speaking, phytochemicals protect the cells in the plant from various environmental hazards such as pollution, stress, drought, UV Exposure and attacks by various microorganisms. Their role has been recently found out in human protection and more than 4000 phytochemicals have been found and are classified by protective function, physical characteristics and chemical characteristics and about 150 phytochemicals have been studied in detail. Phytochemicals accumulate in different parts of the plants such as the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits or seeds. They are mainly concentrated in the outer layers of various plant tissues. Phytochemicals are also available in supplementary forms, but there is very less evidence