Ethnopharmacology of some African Trees

Higher plants accumulate extractable organic substances in quantities sufficient to be economically useful as chemical feedstock.These chemicals serve as raw materials for various scientific and technological applications. South Africa is home to a wide diversity of cultural groups, all of which utilize the flora for a variety of purposes. The scientific evaluation of traditional medicine is very important to validate claims made on safety and efficiency of such usages.Generally the results obtained are in line with the traditional uses of the studied plants as crude anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory drugs. However, traditional healers seldom use a single plant in their extracts. In many cases therapeutic benefits are attributed to consumption of plant mixtures. This may lead to lack of standardization in traditional medicine with respect to raw materials, methods of production and in quality control of the final product. Thus, pharmacological screening of medicinal plants remains important to provide a scientific basis for the traditional use of plants and to provide society with potential sources of new, effective and safe drugs.