Major Medicinal Plants of India

A number of books have been written on medicinal plants of India. All of them, except two exhaustive volumes published by Indian Council of Medical Research, are too old and have become outdated because of considerable research on these plants during the last 25 years. All these volumes, whether old or new, have presented a large list of 1,000 or more plants and the list includes a fairly large number of food crops like wheat, rice, peas, sugarcane, and even common weeds, some of which do not have a real therapeutic value. With the growing interest in higher plants as a source of medicine all over the world, there was a need of a book which includes only important plants of established therapeutic value used either in modern or traditional systems of medicine and which are sold widely in Indian markets for Ayurvedic, Unani, or Allopathic formulations. The present volume includes selected plants based upon their use in formulations used in India and includes botany, geographical distribution, vernacular names, folklore, or traditional use and the current status of chemistry and pharmacology. This also contains selected references on each plant, which would enable the readers to go into details by looking into cross references. It will be found useful by research workers in botany, chemistry, and medicine. In addition, it will be also used by teachers, students, as well as laymen, who are interested in herbal medicine. Pharmaceutical houses, specially those engaged in traditional medicine preparations, would find the volume very useful as it will be possible for them not only to recognise genuine plants, but also to organise a collection of genuine plants. One of the significant points of the present volume is a listing of uses of plants in the two main traditional systems, viz. Ayurveda and Unani, which is not found in other books.