Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. Role of Traditional Medicinal Plants in Drug Discovery: Ethnobotanical Approaches/M. Ayyanar and S. Ignacimuthu. 2. Spilanthes acmella – A Wonderful Medicinal Herb/S.Kalidass, S. Sembian, T. Jeya and Joshni T. Chacko. 3. Dactylorhiza Hatagirea (D.don) A Critically Endangered Medicinal Plant of Trans-Himalaya/Ashutosh A. Murkute, Ashish R. Warghat, G. Phani Kumar. G. P. Mishra and Sunil E. Jadhav. 4. High Altitude Medicinal Plants – A Rich Source of Valuable Phytoconstituents/Janifer Raj.X,  O.P. Chaurasia, M. Pal Murugan and Shashi Bala Singh. 5. Rare Medicinal Plants of Western Ghats in Kerala and their Ayurvedic Uses/Deepu Mathew and Seeja Thomachan Panjikkaran. 6. Uses of Medicinal Plants to Treat Human Disease Among the Tribals at Pachamalai Hills, Tamil Nadu/M. Geetha Rani. 7.  Some Therapeutic Uses of Biodiversity of the Kolli Hills Eastern Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India/Rajendran, A.& S. Manian. 8. Ethno-Medico Plants in courtallum Hills, Southern Western Ghats, India/Sivalingam. R & S. Manian. 9. Medicinal Plant Wealth of Palakonda Hill Ranges, Kadapa District, Andhra Pradesh, India/A. Madhusudhana Reddy and B. Ravi Prasad Rao. 10. Pharmaceutical Properties of L-Dopa and its Therapeutic Application/M. Pugalenthi, V. Vadivel and T. Parimelazhagan. 11. Antioxidant Activity and Hypoglycemic Property of a South Indian Under-Utilized Food Legume Acacia nilotica DC/ M. Pugalenthi, V. Vadivel and T. Parimelazhagan. 12. Post Harvest Handling and Processing of Potential Nutraceutical Crops/Saji Gomez. 13. Quality Control of Herbal plant Material/M. Geetha. 14. Toxicity Evaluation of Herbal Drugs in Animal Models/R. Ilavarasan. 15. Standardization of Marine Herbal Preparations for the Management of Malaria/S. Ravikumar, G. Ramanathan, K. Kathiresan and S. Jacob Inbaneson. 16. In vitro Culture and Studies on Secondary Metabolites in Nothapodytes nimmoniana/Singh, Indramohan and N. Kumaravadivel. 17. Modern Techniques Involving Tissue Culture for Medicinal Plants/M. Anbazhagan, R. Rajendran and M. Kalpana. 18. DNA Barcoding of Indian Medicinal Plants – A Case Study/S. Dhivya, S. Rajeev Kumar, V.S. Ramachandran and R. Sathishkumar. 19. Metabolic Engineering for Therapeutics/M.Muthukumar, S. Seal, P.N. Sivalingam, R. Chandra, V. Satheesh and S. Anandhan. 20. The Role of High Performance Liquid Chromatography in Herbal Research/J. Dharuman. 21. Medicinal and Neutraceutical Properties of Some less Explored Allium Species of Uttarakhand Himalayas : A Potential Future Crop/Hemant Kr. Pandey, M.S.M. Rawat and Zakwan Ahmed. 22. Natural Antioxidant Food Supplements and Human Health/N. Anusuya and S. Manian. 23. Cancer and Diet/Sucheta Tripathy. 24. Plant Antifungal Protein as Therapeutic Agents/Modhumita Dasgupta. 25. Medicinal Plant Databases – A Review/P. Shanmughavel. 26. In silico Structural Analysis of Hypothetical Proteins: A Therapeutic Approach/R. Radhika and P. Shanmughavel. 27. Herbs as Green Nanofactories/S. Girija. 28. Status of Biodiversity and Conservation/D. Sathiyan. 29. Intellectual Property Rights : Protection of Herbal Products and Plant Varieties/D. Thiyagaraja Guptha. 30. Role of plant secondary Metabolites in Ruminant Nutrition/Jadhav Sunil Ekanath, Guru Charan, Tilak Raj Ashutosh Murkute and Shashi Bala Singh.

“The principal aim of this book has been to collate the latest information, and to review the viewpoints of eminent investigators, who excel in the areas of herbal research. An attempt has been made to encapsulate scientific information pertinent to ethnomedicine, pharmacology, phytochemistry, post harvest technology and value addition of herbals. In this book, 30 articles by eminent academicians and scientists of the country on different aspect of the subject have been compiled. All recent scientific innovations/advances have been incorporated in a simple and lucid manner. A special emphasis has been laid on screening of herbal drugs for pharmacological activity, antioxidant potential and bioinformatics tools involved in herbal research. A brief discussion on ‘Intellectual Property Rights’ related to herbal research is also included. This book discusses the WHO protocol, different methods used for standardization, quality control, standards for herbal extracts and validation of herbal products. The book will be useful to students and professionals in the fields of pharmacy, Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha.”