This volume, one in a series on medicinal plants in Member States of WHO's Western Pacific Region, introduces Mongolian traditional medicine and details the nature and uses of medicinal plants found in the country. The book focuses on the medicinal plants used most commonly in Mongolia. Each monograph contains color pictures of the plant and a wide array of information--from the scientific and English names of plants to their microscopic characteristics. While helping record and document traditional medicine practices, this book contributes to the understanding of the value of medicinal plants in Mongolia and increases the evidence base for the safe and efficacious use of herbs in health care.

These essays provide an interdisciplinary approach to the study of contemporary Mongolia, ranging from industrialization, environmental policies, biotechnology and husbandry to descriptions of Mongolian flora and fauna.

The Silk Road, a complex network of trade routes linking China with the rest of the Eurasian continent by land and sea, fostered transformation of the ethnic, cultural, and religious identities of diverse peoples. In Natural Products of Silk Road Plants there is a treasury of plants, many indigenous to countries along the trading routes of the Silk Road, that yielded medicines, cereals, spices, beverages, dyes, and euphoric and exotic compounds previously unknown to the rest of the world. This entry in the Natural Products Chemistry of Global Plants series has been prepared for university students of chemistry and ethnobotany and for those wishing to broaden their knowledge. It opens a window on a vast region of Asia not well described for its flora and provides new and fresh insights on: Significant plants, some endangered Traditional and modern applications of extracts The biochemical and pharmacological properties of extracts Contains over 150 full colour figures The significance of the Silk Road is being revived today through immense investment by China and other eastern countries in major schemes of transport infrastructure.

This beautifully illustrated textbook pairs research on the biochemical properties and physiological effects of medicinal plants with a history of the ways in which humans have cultivated plant species and investigated their effects. Nature's Pharmacopeia fosters an appreciation of the chemistry and cultural resonance of herbal medicine.

This Handbook contains the brief information on medicinal plants mainly used in Indian Systems of Medicine. Nearly 1000 plant species belonging to 164 families either used as main sources of the drugs or as their substitutes and adulterants are given in it. The drug plants have been given familywise following the Bentham and Hooker's system of classification. The brief information about the drug plants i.e. Names (Sanskrit & Botanical) habit of the plants, part(s) used in medicine, main properties/uses and broadly the name of area(s) where the plants naturally occur has been given in tabular form. The names of common substitutes and adulterants of important drug plants have also been provided. Indexes of botanical and Sanskrit names have also been given at the end. The book has been written in a very easy and simple manner, so that an average reader can follow it. The specific features of this small reference book are: (a) The information, including the names of substitutes and adulterants are given in tabular form, so that one can see it at a glance. (b) The book can be kept easily is hand in field and other places. (c) Important medicinal plants of the families have been indicated. (d) The book contains nearly all those plants which are prescribed in various courses of Ayurveda, pharmacy, Medico-botany etc. The book is useful to the students, teachers, researchers on medicinal plants, herbal based pharmaceutical concerned, N.G.O's and other those who are interested in medicinal plants.

This book highlights the results from over a year of ethnobotanical research in a rural and an urban community in Jamaica, where we interviewed more than 100 people who use medicinal plants for healthcare. The goal of this research was to better understand patterns of medicinal plant knowledge, and to find out which plants are used in consensus by local people for a variety of illnesses. For this book, we selected 25 popular medicinal plant species mentioned during fieldwork. Through individual interviews, we were able to rank plants according to their frequency of mention, and categorized the medicinal uses for each species as “major” (mentioned by more than 20% of people in a community) or “minor” (mentioned by more than 5%, but less than 20% of people). Botanical identification of plant specimens collected in the wild allowed for cross-linking of common and scientific plant names. To supplement field research, we undertook a comprehensive search and review of the ethnobotanical and biomedical literature. Our book summarizes all this information in detail under specific sub-headings.

In 1860, Oliver Wendell Holmes pointedly expressed himself to the Massachusetts Medical Society: “I firmly believe that if the whole Material Medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind, and all the worst for the fishes.” Should one think the same about the current approach in drug discovery from plants? Probably yes. Despite the spending of billions of US dollars, and three decades of efforts, high-throughput screenings have only allowed the discovery of a couple of drugs. One could have reasonably expected the discovery of an arsenal of drugs from the millions of plant extracts randomly tested, but “hits” can be inactive in vitro or too toxic, some molecules need to be metabolized first to be active, and false-positive and false-negative results are common. The bitter truth is that the robotic approach in discovering drugs from plants has proven, to date, its inability to excavate the hundreds of molecules that will contribute to the health progress of Man. However, one can reasonably see that the last patches of primary rainforest on earth hold still hundreds of spectacularly active drugs that await discovery.

Iwígara, when translated, means the kinship of plants and people. And that is exactly what Enrique Salmón explores in this important book. Iwígara shares culturally specific information about 80 plants, addressing their historical and modern-day uses as medicine, food, spices, and more. Iwígara includes plants entries derived from many different American Indian tribes and seven geographic regions across the United States. Each plant entry includes the names commonly used by different tribes, a color photograph, a short description, rich details about how the plant is used, and tips on identification and ethical harvest. Traditional stories and myths, along with images of the plants from different forms of Native American arts and crafts, enrich the text.