In the literature, medicinal plants have been alternatively termed as medicinal herbs, pharmaceutical plants, drug plants, medicinal herbs or herbal plants etc. Herbs are different from trees, shrubs, bushes, climbers, creepers etc. Are there any differences among these terms or do they convey the same meaning?
"Herb" is a term used for those plants exhibiting herbaceous habit i.e. the plants with soft stems lacking wood, usually smaller in size and mostly annuals. In traditional medicine systems normally we see the terms "herbal medicine", "herbal drugs" etc. which, to me, means medicine belonging to overall plants (herbs, shrubs, trees, succulents, climbers and twinners) and not specifically to herbaceous plants.
For me there is no difference, herbal medicine or herbal drug is not only that it derived from herbaceous plants, it is symbolically used for all medicine or drugs derived from plants.
- Sounds like that Medicinal plants can be used to treat some kinds of diseases (for example, the bark of willow trees contains large amounts of salicylic acid, which is the active metabolite of aspirin), but Herbal plants can be used to promote health or increase energy, such as you add some herbal ingredients in the foods or tea.
I also think that the term medicinal plants was more frequently used for traditional use of plants...that is plants used in traditional cultures for medicinal purposes. The term herbal medicine is a more modern term and used often but not exclusively in conjunction with pharmaceutical preparations.
Any herb used for its medicinal properties can be considered as a medicinal plant. However, herbal plants also give other products such as cosmetics. I don't think we can call these plants as medicinal plants.
The plants (herb, shrubs or trees) which possess medicinal properties are in general known as Medicinal plants. On the other hand, herbal plants are those medicinal plants which frequently used in the preparation of pharmaceutical products.
Dear all
Thank you for sharing your valuable thoughts and experiences.
Best wishes.
Botanical species possessing therapeutic value are grouped as medicinal plants while plants with essence or aromatic properties are called aromatic plants. However, many medicinal plants posses aromatic properties because of the presence of essential oil in them and many aromatic plants are used as pharmaceuticals in aroma therapy. So, sharp demarcation between two seems to be rare.
"Herbal Medicines" not only pertain to the herb plant species. But this term is likely be more commonly used for the medicines derived from any type of plant (herb, shrub, tree, climber, liana) in the Pharma sector. On the other hand "Medicinal Plant" is generally used for any types of plant, used to take care of the health related issues.
All medicinal plants may be considered as "herbal plants" in colloquial sense, but all herbal plants are not having noticeable medicinal effect.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Biota
- Eukaryota
- Viridiplantae
- Streptophyta
- Plants