University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore

Present book is an attempt to compile the scattered information about the basic and advance aspects of medicinal and aromatic plants and its systematic arrangement in the semi subjective form. Unlike most of other books, which are completely objective in nature, the present form of the book could help the reader in increasing the understanding due to its self explanatory nature. Efforts have been made to cover all the important aspects pertaining to medicinal and aromatic plants in the introductory section. Also, essential information pertaining to important crop species has been covered in the subsequent section. The final section contains basic information about the minor species having future potential.

Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) are traded both as raw materials and as processed final products. Demand for a wide variety of species is increasing as these markets expand and new end-uses are developed. About 2,000 to 2,500 plants have regularly been used in preparation of different formulations in India, 5,700 in China, 1,400 in Sri Lanka and 700 in Nepal. The Indian system of medicines (ISM) includes Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Homeopathy and Tibetan, which make use of about 2000, 1121, 751, 482 and 337 plants, respectively. The world Health Organization estimates that up to 80% of the world now relies on medicinal plants as main source of health care. The price trends of most of the Himalayan species of medicinal plants traded in market have been upwards in the last 3 years. However, about 90% of medicinal plants used by the industries are collected from the wild. While over 800 species are used in the industry, less than 20 species of plants are under commercial cultivation.