Title:The Importance of Neglected and Underutilized Medicinal Plants from
South America in Modern Pharmaceutical Sciences
Volume: 20
Issue: 11
Author(s): Mohamad Hesam Shahrajabian, Qi Cheng and Wenli Sun*
Affiliation:
- Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Keywords:
Medicinal plants, neglected plants, underutilized plants, aromatic plants, traditional medicinal science, amazon region.
Abstract: The world needs a paradigm change from the current views on many plants to secure future
food and nutrition. Many neglected and underutilized plants, specially medicinal and aromatic plants, are
nutrient dense, appropriate in diversifying diets, provide enough vitamins and micronutrients for people,
high resistant to diseases and pests, and can be adapted in many regions and of course with tremendous
pharmaceutical benefits. Many of the medicinal plant species which were common in traditional medicine
are still neglected and underutilized, especially in developing and under-developing countries. Lack of
attention to these plants means their potential medicinal properties are under exploited and underestimated.
The searches focused on publications from 1980 to July 2021 using PubMed, Google Scholar, Science
Direct, and Scopus databases. Review of the literature was carried out using the following keywords,
"medicinal plants", "neglected plants", "underutilized plants", "aromatic plants", "traditional medicine
science", and "South America". In this review article, the authors have focused on medicinal values of
Schinusterebinthifolius, Uncaria tomentosa, Phyllanthusamarus, Astrocaryum aculeatum, Croton cajucara,
Arrabidaea chica, Bauhinia forticata, Copaifera langsdorffii, Cordia verbenacea, Caesalpinia ferrea,
Salix alba L., Casearia sylvestris, Carapa guianensis, Costus spicatus, and Eugenia uniflora L., in
both modern and traditional science. Although many studies have evaluated the biological characteristics
of these plants, little has been done to identify and characterize its chemical components, which is certainly
a niche that requires to be further explored.
