BOTANY Higher Secondary Second Year - Textbooks Online

6.8. Medicinal plants including microbes
India is endowed with a rich wealth of medicinal plants. From earliest
times mankind has used hundreds of medicinal plants in an attempt to cure
diseases and relieve physical sufferings. They derived this knowledge as
a result of trial and error. Medicinal properties of plants have been
mentioned even in the oldest “Rig Veda”. Medicinal plants are becoming
popular throughout the developed world, as people want to treat illness.
It is estimated that around 70,000 plant species, from lichens to tall
trees, have been used as medicinal plants. 500 plants have been studied in
detail. According to WHO about 25 per cent of prescribed human medicines
are derived from plants. India accounts for nearly 1,100 species used in
different systems of medicines like Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, etc. Out of
these, 600 to 700 species are used much in the country. But 95 per cent of
medicinal plants are obtained from wild sources and they are not cultivated
now.
Now, efforts are being made to introduce many of these useful plants
to farmers. Agronomic practices have been developed for growing poppy,
isobgol, cincona, belladona, ergot, etc. Medicinal plants have curative
properties due to presence of various complex chemical substances in
different composition like alkaloids, glycosides, corticosteroids, essential
oils, etc. Nowadays, these medicinally valuable compounds obtained
from the medicinal plants are called ”biomedicines”.
Some of the important medicinal plants and their products are
Morphine, the strongest pain killer obtained from Opium poppy -
Papaver somniferum.
Quinine, antimalarial drug which controls malarial fever is derived
from Cinchona calisaya and C. officinalis.
Digoxin, used to treat heart diseases is obtained from the plant
Digitalis.
Ephedrine, used to treat cough is extracted from the plant Ephedra
sinica.
Mental and physical stress relaxing drug is obtained from the plant
ginseng – Panax ginseng.
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