Medicinal plant is defined as any plant with one or more
of its organs containing substance that can be used for therapeutic purpose or
which can be used as precursors for the synthesis of antimicrobial drugs.
Plants are presently the sources of medicines for many people of different agein many country of the world, where diseases are treated primarily with
traditional medicines obtained from plants. The modern pharmaceutical industry
itself still relies largely on the diversity of secondary metabolites in plants
and secondary metabolites of which at least 12,000 have been isolated; a number
estimated to be less than 10% of the total. In plants, the synthesized aromatic
substances (metabolites) are used as defensive weapons against predation by
microorganisms, insects and herbivores.
Alstonia boonei, a large evergreen tree belonging to the
family Apocynaceae is one of the widely used medicinal plants in Africa and
beyond. The important plants of genus Alstonia includes Alstonia scholaris,
Alstonia boonei, Alstonia congensis and Alstonia macrophylla which have proved
to be useful in various diseases.
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