Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Introduction --
2. Cultivation practices of medicinal plants --
3. Culinary herbs and aromatic plants --
4. Medicinal and aromatic plant industries --
5. Medicinal plants and phytomedicines --
6. Economically important aromatic plants --
7. Medicinal plants and aromatic herbs: genomics and biosynthetic pathways --
8. Ethnobotanical approach to drug discovery.

"Medicinal and aromatic plants occupy an important position in the sociocultural, health care and spiritual arena of rural people of India. Medicinal plants contributed significantly to the rural livelihoods. Globally, medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPS) constitute one of the integral parts of the biodiversity, ecosystem and biological heritage. Wide varieties of aromatic and medicinal crops have been identified and explored for their essential oils nowadays. Essential oils are defined as complex volatile compounds synthesized naturally from plant parts during the process of secondary metabolism. It has a great strength in the field of biomedicine as they effectively control a wide range of viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens due to presence of different types of aldehydes, terpenes, phenolics, and other antimicrobial compounds. A major limitation in the widescale planting of potentially high economic value crops such as medicinal and aromatic plants is the issue of the land availability. Land for the planting of any crop, used to be available in abundance but is currently getting scarce. Futher more, because environmental consideration, clearing of forests for the purpose of crop cultivation is currently not encouraged. There is a tremendous pressure to conserve our forests. In addition, a lot of our natural forests have been gazetted as permanent forests. Even in new plantings, with the good price of palm oil, the focus is more on the planting of this crop. In addition, monoculture planting of medicinal and aromatic plants, although of potentially high value, may involve some form of biological and economic risks. With this scenario, it is therefore imperative that alternative forms of planting of medicinal and aromatic plants, are sought and considered. This book contains information on aromatic plants in terms of their general features, recommended crop varieties and cultivation practices and chemical properties and uses of essential oils. The book covers important aspect on current status of development of aromatic plants, biodiversity in aromatic plants production systems and utilization of herbs and aroma plants." -- Provided by publisher