Herbal Medicines have been used for centuries to cure many diseases. It has also been known as herbal therapy, natural medicine, or herbal remedy. As research is getting more extensive in this field, more evidences are discovered that prove their therapeutical benefit. But a-well balanced information is crusial to maintain the objectivity regarding the use of a plant material as medicine, in other word, it should be based on scientific studies and researches (especially when it comes to dosage, use in pregnancy, lactating mother, and children).
All information depicted here are based on studies and scientific papers, nevertheles it should not replace a pharmacist, doctor, or other health professional's advice, so, they should be treated as additional information.

Aspects covered in this website are :

• Scientif name / latin name of a plant
• Vernacular / local names
• Synonim
• Plant description
• Plant material used
• Chemical constituents
• Medicinal uses supported by clinical data, well established documents, and traditional use
• Animal studies and human studies that prove their pharmacological activities
• Contraindication, adverse effects, and toxicology
• Herbal use in pregnancy, lactation, and children
• Herbal interaction with drugs, food components, or laboratory tests
• Dosage forms
• Posology or recommended dose
• Herbal preparation methods (simple extraction methods)
• Products in the market containing the particular herb or other services related to herbs

To navigate, just click a herb's initial above, then click one of the herbs shown on the left panel

Despite the enormous amount of information obtained in this field, yet there are still several misunderstanding that need to be clarified

Some of the major misunderstandings are:

1. Everything natural is safe
Nothing on this earth is an absolute good nor evil, so do herbs. Some plants can be used as medicine but some are also poisonous, and even those which have therapeutic potential can be lethal if we use it unaccordingly (x: ten pieces of digitalis leaves can cause a fatal heart attack in a nomal person, and a cobra's poison isn't exactly safe)

2. Herbs are side-effects free
This is not true

3. We can consume medicinal plants everyday
Medicinal plants are like drugs, with more similarities than we may think. So use them only when we`re in a condition that requires them, not whenever we want to, for example, high dose curcumin use in a long term can induce mutation. There`s quite an easy way to tell if a certain plant material is safe to consume on a routine bases or not, just see if that material is used for everyday dishes, if they are, then its safe, such as garlic, onion, fruit, and vegetables. But if not (for example it tastes bitter, or simply unedible) dont try to use them everyday. Healthy body requires macro and micro nutrients to stay healthy, not drugs, and we can have all that our body needs from food components. Just make sure we have enough fruit and vegetables everyday, and just a little spices.

4. We can use herbs as much as we can
Like drugs, medicinal plants have what its called "therapeutic range" i.e, when the concentration of the herb`s active constituents rise above the range, it will become toxic, or when they fall below the range, it will offer no benefit. In most cases the range are wide, but some medicinal plants have a narrow range, for example: digitalis leaves.

5. Isolated compounds from plants are better then the whole plants itself
This is not necessarily true, a single plant contains tenths to hundreds of thousands of compounds. Some of these compounds have therapeutic potential (which in most cases they act synergistically to provide a certain effect) but some, on the other hand, can have adverse effects on human body, and many of them reside within the same plant. Whole plants are equipped with compounds to counteract these unwanted compounds. When we extract and isolate them, we take the most active compound from them and use or synthesize them into drug, in a way this is very good, because some plants have a very small amount of active constituents that makes it impossible to use it as a medicine directly from the plant (for example taxan, very active anticancer compounds from bark of Taxus brevifolia), but on the other hand also strip them off from synergistic multicompound effect and adverse-effects neutralizer. Either way this will continue to be an ever expanding field of knowledge.

Please pay more attention on the red highlighted items, since they concern the safety information on the use of that plant material.
We will continuously add more plants into the contents, when enough information on a plant material have been collected.

Regards