Medicine

Plants are a vital part of healthcare. Over 80% of the world's people rely on traditional medicine, much of which is based on plant remedies. Traditional Chinese medicine alone uses over 5,000 plant species.

Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle)

In the developed world around a quarter of all prescriptions contain materials isolated from plants. Others, like aspirin, are synthesised copies of chemicals found naturally in plants, or are modified from the initial natural product.

The rose periwinkle of Madagascar (Catharanthus roseus, right) has yielded 2 drugs for the treatment of cancer: it is the source of alkaloids used to treat childhood leukaemia and Hodgkin's disease.

Medicinal plants are mostly harvested from the wild, which can put them under great pressure. In Europe alone, an estimated 150 medicinal plant species are at risk from over-harvesting.

Despite the high reliance on plants in medicine, less than 20% of the described plant species have been investigated for the presence of bioactive compounds. Many more medicines have yet to be developed from plant materials.