A phytochemical review on premna species

Abstract

Plants are the almost exclusive source of drugs for the majority of the world population. Therefore, it remains a challenge for scientists to provide efficient, safe and cheap medications, especially for the rural areas, with the available resources of the nearest. In the present review an attempt has been made to gather the information regarding taxonomical characters, various species, climatic conditions, various folklore uses and some phytochem- ical, pharmacological and antimicrobial studies conducted so far on these Premna genus plants which belong to Verbenaceae family. This review reveals that the Premna species can be used in treating various ailments like rheumatism, asthma, dropsy, cough, fever, boils and scrofulous disease. With this review we conclude that there is a need for conducting further studies for isolation of individual constituents, to find out their pharmacognostical characters and going for different formulations and screening of various activities on these genus plants.