Plant Profiles

In this section we will discuss plant attributes, general information on the plant, its main characteristics, growth habit, climatic requirements and medicinal benefits which willl include current and up to date research.

Plants consist of a botanical name and a common name. When dealing with plants in particular those that are to be used for medicinal purposes it is imperative that the current botanical name is used

Plants come in broad family groups ie Roses come from the ROSACEA family. For our purposes while it is useful to know which family a plant comes from because they will share similar attributes we are more concerned with the global nomanclature which is the same throughout the world.

• Botanical name which, which includes  ‘Genus‘ which will start with a captial letter ‘species’ which will not have a capital letter and subgroups like ‘variety’.
• Active ingredients present. This may inclde a phytochemical profile which usually has variations of the genus name
• Medical research.
• Current and Traditional uses

 Hypericum perforatum

This typically will be made up of three broad constituent groups to include Phenolics, Amino acids and Terpenoids.

It is under the group of Phenolics you will find the subgroups to include the following:

• Flavanoids which have active ingredients which will also have part of the botanical name or derivatives of it in there ie Hyperin along with the names you will see in other plant groups ie Quercitin, Biflavone, amentoflavone , isoquercitin rutin.
• Quinones which also have derivatives of the botanical name ie Hyperin, Pseudohyperin, Hyperforin, Adhyperforin
• Coumarins
• Tannins
• Xanthones
• Napthodianthrones which also have derivatives of the botanical name.