Biological and Phytochemical Screening of Plants

Plants used against cancer - an extension of the work of Jonathan Hartwell.

The concept of biological diversity (biodiversity) is reviewed, with special attention to its measurement and natural trends. While generalizations regarding the necessity of biodiversity need to be interpreted with caution, it is argued that biodiversity should be protected in more ecosystem and landscape reserves, and that biodiversity is a reasonable management objective on timber lands as well. Maintaining biodiversity is important because we cannot always identify which individual species are critical to ecosystem sustainability, nor which species may be useful to mankind in future. Many wild species can provide useful natural products and genetic material, and can serve as ecological indicators. Diversity reduces pest and disease problems, and encourages recovery from disturbance. Uncertainty exists with regard to climate change and future socioeconomic values. It is therefore prudent to maximize flexibility by promoting a wide array of species and potential products. Suggestions are offered on how ...

The value of managing for biodiversity

S & BIBLIOGRAPHIES Bibliography of Agriculture Biological Abstracts Botany Subject Index (U. S. Dept. of Agriculture) Chemical Abstracts Craker, L. E., A. F. Chadwick, & J. E. Simon. 1986. An introduction to the scientific literature on herbs, spices, and medicinal plants. Recent Adv. Bot. Hort. Pharm. 1: 1-9. Excerpta Botanica Index Medicus Index to American Botanical Literature Simon, J. E., A. F. Chadwick, & L. E. Craker. 1984. Herbs: an indexed bibliography, 1971-1980: the scientific literature on selected herbs, and aromatic and medicinal plants of the temperate zone. Shoe String Press. 770 pp.

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Plants & Civilization; An Introduction to the Interrelationships of Plants and People

There is controversy about whether traditional medicine can guide drug discovery, and investment in bioprospecting informed by ethnobotanical data has fluctuated. One view is that traditionally used medicinal plants are not necessarily efficacious and there are no robust methods for distinguishing those which are most likely to be bioactive when selecting species for further testing. Here, we reconstruct a genus-level molecular phylogenetic tree representing the 20,000 species found in the floras of three disparate biodiversity hotspots: Nepal, New Zealand, and the Cape of South Africa. Borrowing phylogenetic methods from community ecology, we reveal significant clustering of the 1,500 traditionally used species, and provide a direct measure of the relatedness of the three medicinal floras. We demonstrate shared phylogenetic patterns across the floras: related plants from these regions are used to treat medical conditions in the same therapeutic areas. This finding strongly indicates independent discovery of plant efficacy, an interpretation corroborated by the presence of a significantly greater proportion of known bioactive species in these plant groups than in random samples. We conclude that phylogenetic cross-cultural comparisons can focus screening efforts on a subset of traditionally used plants that are richer in bioactive compounds, and could revitalize the use of traditional knowledge in bioprospecting.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/109/39/15835.full.pdf

Phylogenies reveal predictive power of traditional medicine in bioprospecting.

Despite the small area of New Zealand, comparable with that of California, it constitutes a distinctive botanic region, Of the approximate number of two thousand species of higher plants found, 75% are endemic to the country Many unusual plants occur and the chemical investigations conducted to date have confirmed the unique nature of the flora In view of these facts it is surprising that only a few native plants have been commercially exploited Several of the trees, notably Agathis australis, Dacrydium cupressinumt, Podocarpus totara, P dacrydioides, and Vitex lucens yield useful timber, but the stands of these have largely been worked out New Zealand flax, Phormiunm tenax, is cultivated for its fibre which is made into ropes and matting Kauri gum (really a fossil product) up to a value of ?21 million has been exported but it is a declining article of commerce It has been shown that useful dyestuffs can be produced from a number of plants, particularly in the genus Coprosnia, but no commercial exploitation has resulted Pharmacology is probably the most promising field for extending the use of New Zealand native plants and it should therefore be of value to have a check list of those plants reported to have been used medicinally by the natives of New Zealand This must necessarily include usage by early settlers as it cannot be decided with certainty what the settlers learned from the Maori and vice versa Indeed some authorities on Maori culture believe that all medicinal use of plants by the natives was learned from the white man's exanmple-a conclusion

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/4252212

New Zealand medicinal plants

The known and potential uses of New Zealand native plants and the products obtained from them are reviewed. Introduced species are not included.

Robert C. Cooper

Papers

New Zealand medicinal plants

Economic native plants of New Zealand