Rosaceae, the rose family, is a medium-sized family of flowering plants that includes 4,828 known species in 91 genera.
Aristolochic acids are a family of carcinogenic, mutagenic, and nephrotoxic phytochemicals commonly found in the flowering plant family Aristolochiaceae (birthworts). Aristolochic acid (AA) I is the most abundant one. The family Aristolochiaceae includes the genera Aristolochia and Asarum, which are commonly used in Chinese herbal medicine. Although these compounds are widely associated with kidney problems, liver and urothelial cancers, the use of AA-containing plants for medicinal purposes has a long history. The FDA has issued warnings regarding consumption of AA-containing supplements.
Chinese herbology is the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A Nature editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that the most obvious reason why it has not delivered many cures is that the majority of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action.
Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from Artemisia annua, a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of plants used in 21st century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine commonly includes fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Herbal medicine is also called phytomedicine or phytotherapy.
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals.
Goji, goji berry, or wolfberry is the fruit of either Lycium barbarum or Lycium chinense, two closely related species of boxthorn in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. L. barbarum and L. chinense fruits are similar but can be distinguished by differences in taste and sugar content.
Saxifraga is the largest genus in the family Saxifragaceae, containing about 465 species of holarctic perennial plants, known as saxifrages or rockfoils. The Latin word saxifraga means literally "stone-breaker", from Latin saxum + frangere. It is usually thought to indicate a medicinal use for treatment of urinary calculi, rather than breaking rocks apart.
Harmine is a beta-carboline and a harmala alkaloid. It occurs in a number of different plants, most notably the Syrian rue and Banisteriopsis caapi. Harmine reversibly inhibits monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A), an enzyme which breaks down monoamines, making it a Reversible inhibitor of monoamine oxidase A (RIMA). Harmine does not inhibit MAO-B. Harmine is also known as banisterin, banisterine, telopathin, telepathine, leucoharmine and yagin, yageine.
Catharanthus roseus, commonly known as bright eyes, Cape periwinkle, graveyard plant, Madagascar periwinkle, old maid, pink periwinkle, rose periwinkle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It is native and endemic to Madagascar, but grown elsewhere as an ornamental and medicinal plant. It is a source of the drugs vincristine and vinblastine, used to treat cancer. It was formerly included in the genus Vinca as Vinca rosea.
Thomas Colin Campbell is an American biochemist who specializes in the effect of nutrition on long-term health. He is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University.
Andrographis paniculata, commonly known as creat or green chiretta, is an annual herbaceous plant in the family Acanthaceae, native to India and Sri Lanka.
Saxifraga stolonifera is a perennial flowering plant known by several common names, including creeping saxifrage, strawberry saxifrage, creeping rockfoil, Aaron's beard, mother of thousands, roving sailor, and strawberry begonia or strawberry geranium.
Ligusticum striatum is a flowering plant native to India, Kashmir, and Nepal in the carrot family best known for its use in traditional Chinese medicine where it is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs. It is known by the common name Szechuan lovage. It contains the phytoprogestogens 3,8-dihydrodiligustilide and riligustilide.
Chen Zhu is a Chinese hematologist, molecular biologist, and politician. He is a vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and President of the Red Cross Society of China. He was also the chairman of the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party from 2012 to 2022. He formerly served as China's Minister of Health. Chen also holds a professorship at the School of Medicine of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Cāng zhú, also known as black atractylodes rhizome or Rhizoma Atractylodes, is a Chinese herbal medicine. It is the dried rhizome of Atractylodes lancea (Thunb.) DC., Atractylodes chinensis (DC.) Koidz, or certain other local species including Atractylodes japonica Koidz. The medicine is distinguished from bái zhú, which is typically cultivated, whereas cāng zhú more often tends to be collected from the wild. It is believed that the distinction between cāng zhú and bái zhú emerged in relatively modern times; a single drug "zhú" described in the Shen nong ben cao jing probably included many Atractylodes species.
Psychotrieae is a tribe of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae and contains about 2114 species in 17 genera. Its representatives are found in the tropics and subtropics.
Brucea javanica is a shrub in the family Simaroubaceae. The specific epithet javanica is from the Latin, meaning "of Java". Other common names in English include Java brucea and kosam.
Dr. Charlotte M. Taylor is a botanist and professor specialising in taxonomy and conservation. She works with the large plant family Rubiaceae, particularly found in the American tropics and in the tribes Palicoureeae and Psychotrieae. This plant family is an economically important group, as it includes plant species used to make coffee and quinine. Taylor also conducts work related to the floristics of Rubiaceae and morphological radiations of the group. Taylor has collected plant samples from many countries across the globe, including Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, and the United States of America, and has named many new species known to science from these regions. As of 2015, Taylor has authored 278 land plant species' names, the seventh-highest number of such names authored by any female scientist.
Alkekengi officinarum, the bladder cherry, Chinese lantern, Japanese-lantern, strawberry groundcherry, or winter cherry, is a species of flowering plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae. It is a close relative of the new world Calliphysalis carpenteri and a somewhat more distant relative to the members of the Physalis genus. This species is native to the regions covering Southern Europe to South Asia and Northeast Asia.
