Medicinal Plants: Uses, Conservation and Applications [2024]

I am very passionate about natural medicine, i.e., medicinal plants, and have dedicated a lot of my time to developing it. I believe in water-based extraction, and most of my extracts were obtained in this manner. I have also done pre-clinical and other specific studies. However, it is difficult to enter the mainstream hospital market because pharmaceutical companies have shaped how people should prefer chemical medicine to natural medicine.

There are so many medicinal plants in the United States alone that we walk by that have not had enough conclusive studies done on them to prove their traditional uses. On the other hand, there are Medicinal Plants like boneset, echinacea, dandelion, plantain, lobelia, maitake, and more that have amazing medicinal benefits. So you never know if the plant in your yard or garden pestering you could be a medicinal plants or even edible plant!

Medicinal Plants: People Sharing Their Experiences

I have been a plant person for as long as I can remember in my 60 years. There are so many helpful medicinal plants, but you can’t just go about mixing concoctions of them haphazardly. For example, I would be in a terrible mess if we hadn’t discovered salicylic acid that comes from the bark of a Willow tree species, better known as “aspirin,” essential for treating headaches, etc. There is also one other common ground cover used in landscaping that is known as “cut wort” or “blind finger”—a vining plant with round glossy leaves (“Vinca Major”) that I have applied to minor cuts and scrapes (by crushing the leaves) that acts as a cryptic to stop minor bleeding.

We locally have this wild plant called “Tawa-tawa” [Euphorb hirta] that we use to treat people who have dengue. We just boil the fresh tawa tawa (like tea), then make the patient drink it. It helps a lot to make the patient’s platelets go back to normal. It’s a traditional medicine used by the locals. Doctors won’t even allow patients to bring it to the hospital. I’m glad that there is research going on to study this plant.

My grandmother has a bunch of the Rosy Periwinkle in her garden in DR, and as a kid, I thought it was some useless flower, but I didn’t know it was so important to cancer research. It makes you think about how much Medicinal Plants help us.

Another interesting one to mention is Taxus brevifola, the Pacific yew. It is currently rated as “near threatened” because it has a relatively limited range (parts of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia). However, a substance extracted from samples of Pacific yew yielded the drug paclitaxel, which is used to treat certain forms of breast, ovarian, and lung cancer. Work with the chemical revealed a way to synthesize it from similar compounds found in other, more common yew species.

I have two large periwinkle medicinal plants at my home. I live in India, and these medicinal plants are very common here. I never liked this plant because I like aromatic medicinal plants more, but now I respect these two ways more than I did before. One of them is pink like the picture, but the other one is white.

Madagascar periwinkle is not limited to Madagascar. It is also a commonly found plant in India and is called ‘Sadabahar or ‘सदाबहार’ in Hindi. It has been a very popular remedy for a variety of treatments in Ayurveda as well as other indigenous medicine systems across the country. The ancient Ayurveda is called the Mother of Medicine and was the first in the world to use medicinal plants only for medicinal purposes. It also covers lifestyle, psychology, and nutrition.

Rosy Periwinkle, locally called “Nayan Tara,” which translates to “Eye-star” in Bangladesh, is a bit of an invasive species and is found grown anywhere. It’s a very rare species. My mom uses its juice on her pupils as medicine or sometimes drinks it. I’m not sure if it helped or not. But at least they didn’t show any signs of harm.

Feverfew and ginseng are another two great medicinal plants to mention. Feverfew is good at regulating migraines, and ginseng is shown to have some (tentative) abilities to fight radiation poisoning. I also can’t help but think that some herbs were more for nutrition support than medicine. The nettle species doesn’t have any easily identified active components but has high amounts of calcium, iron, and magnesium, along with other vitamins, so maybe herbs like this are better for eating and prevention than actual medicine.

My husband has lymphoma. It has been getting worse over the years (which is normal, unfortunately), but he recently (3 months ago) volunteered for a clinical trial involving a new compound of vinblastine. This drug has always been used in chemotherapy and in combination with other drugs, but this study uses only vinblastine in specific, varying doses over time. He has improved substantially over this time.

Unfortunately, at age 82 and with COPD as well, the long-term outlook is not too good. However, it has increased his immune system remarkably, so he gets less chest congestion and can breathe easier all the time. He used to come up one flight of stairs and have to hold onto something while he wheezed for air. He can now walk around fine afterwards. So vinblastine, although prescribed for his lymphoma, is also helping to control his COPD and give him a much better quality of life. Thank you, little plant.

You forgot the sage leaf. I’m not sure about the science behind it or where it’s native, but it’s my favorite plant. It doesn’t look pretty, and the fuzzy leaves kind of look bad for you, but if you soak the leaves in hot water and make sage tea (add a bit of honey or lemon), then it works wonders. It fixes colds and the flu, boosts your immune system, and can even cure early tonsillitis. But only when it’s early. If you leave the tonsillitis too long or take too long to find out you have it, it’s less likely to work. But hey, the next time you’ve got the flu, go get some sage, boil a kettle of water, mix it with honey or lemon to taste, and drink while it’s still warm.

Chia seeds and pumpkin seeds. My husband suffered from migraines for years. We heard about a muffin recipe on The Doctors and gave it a try. He eats a muffin a day, and his migraine frequency has gone down. When he actually gets a migraine, they aren’t as bad. Plus, there are no side effects.

I love medicinal plants, and this is why I study their uses. One of my favorite herbs to use is common plantain, not the banana kind, for skin irritation (like touching nettle). It works wonders, and I dazzled my sister by using it on her out in the woods when she touched something.