PROSEA, Volume 12/1: Medicinal and Poisonous Plants 1

About this book

This first of the three planned volumes on the medicinal and poisonous plants of South-East Asia deals with the better-known species and genera. Many people in this region depend on plants for their primary health care and as pesticides. Interest in medicinal and poisonous plants is increasing because it is recognized that plants are still a vast source of novel chemical compounds, that traditional systems of medicine are good starting points for drug development, that synthetic drugs often produce serious side-effects and that pesticides of plant origin are usually environmentally benign. This volume gives up-to-date information on all aspects of the plants, and, where possible, couples traditional uses with recent scientific findings. The volume covers about 330 species, including aloe, coca, derris, garlic, hemp, Java tea, Madagascar periwinkle, poppy, quinine, snakewood, turmeric, wormseed and Wormwood. The introduction deals with general aspects of medicinal and poisonous plants. A glossary and several indices are included.

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