General overview of medicinal and aromatic plants: A review

Abstract

Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered ad used in traditional medicine practices since pre historic times and attached with development of human culture. As a source of medicine medical plants have always been at the forefront virtually all cultures of civilizations. Medicinal plants are regarded as rich resources of traditional medicines and from these plants many of the modern medicines are produced. For thousands of years medicinal plants have been used to treat health disorders to add flavour and conserve food and to prevent diseases epidemics. The secondary metabolites produced by the plants are usually responsible for the biological characteristics of plant species used throughout the world. The microbial growth in diverse situations is controlled by plant derived products. In this review we give general overview of the medicinal plants.