Man has been using plants for healing purposes since time immemorial. In the past few decades, plant scientists and chemists have made great efforts to identify the active ingredients of traditional or folk herbal medicines as therapeutic agents.

This book brings together the diverse research trends in the field of medicinal botany across the globe. It explains the varied apsects of medicinal plant research. Beginning with the core study of distribution patterns of medicinal plants, it covers the wide range of chemical evaluation of their therapeutic properties, unravels the impact of environmental stresses on medicinal plants and their active ingredients, and highlights the modern research at molecular authentication and quality assessment of medicinal plants, in vitro propagation of these plants for enhanced production of bioactive metabolites, and the metabolomic approach for metabolic fingerprinting and identification of new active compounds.

This book will be a great source of information on recent research trends in medicinal botany and phytochemistry, catering to the need of students and researchers.