Conservation of Medicinal Plants

About this book

Language: English

From the foreword:

"[...] Medicinal plants are characterized by their complex components and a variety of targets. Compared with synthetic drugs, the appropriate application of medicinal plants to multiple targets under the guidance of relevant theories usually has marked effects on the treatment of some chronic diseases, but this also indicates more difficult control of the quality of medicinal plants. For many medicinal plants, active ingredients remain unidentified and their efficacy may be a result of interaction among components, dramatically increasing the difficulty in efficacy evaluation.

How to ensure the provision of medicinal plants with stable and sound efficacy for future disease treatment is a question that pharmacists have long been considering. A great number of species and components has been preserved through the establishment of medicinal plant gardens; however, can the sustainability of efficacy be truly maintained using this simple way? Failure to correctly explain the mechanism underlying the formation and maintenance of efficacy will leave the core problem of medicinal plant preservation unsolved, and the study of these plants has to be guided by a new discipline of “conservation of medicinal plants".

[...] People gained a more profound understanding of medicinal plants by the virtue of the experience accumulated over thousands of years and learned that some plants delivered high medicinal effects only when grown in a specific environment, but insufficient research has been conducted to explore the relevant mechanisms. Due to the exposure to unordered introduction and exploitation, many wild medicinal plants are now at the risk of extinction and efficacy loss. These issues can only be reversed through the protection and conservation of these plants based on the principles of conservation biology as well as through the proper satisfaction of future demand with these plant resources.

Conservation of medicinal plants aims to protect these resources, stabilize their efficacy, and ensure that they are used under the guidance of sustainability. Botanical gardens are built to facilitate the study of medicinal plant conservation and species preservation and to provide rich plant resources for the development and application of medicines. Conservation of Medicinal Plants reflects our cognition on this course of conservation."

Contents

Foreword
Chapter 1. Introduction   1
Chapter 2. Risks of Loss of Medicinal Plant Species and Their Efficacy   27
Chapter 3. Hypotheses Related to the Origin of Medicinal Plants   51
Chapter 4. Principles of Medicinal Plant Conservation   92
Chapter 5. Techniques of Medicinal Plant Conservation   148
Chapter 6. Conservation Strategies and Models for Medicinal Plants   205
Chapter 7. Conservation Case Study: Sophora tonkinensis   251

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