ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the ethnopharmacology of wild medicinal plants by some examples of the discovery of drugs from wild plants. Modern ethnopharmacology includes botanical, ethnobotanical, phytochemical, ethnopharmacological, pharmacological and toxicological fields. Ethnopharmacological research greatly increases the chances of discovering new drugs. Plants with ethnopharmacological uses have been the primary sources of medicines for early drug discovery. Ethnobotanists choose a society that documents traditional knowledge of wild plants. The ethnomedicinal parts work to document the ethnomedical formula of individual medicinal plants into herbal medicines, whereas the ethnopharmacological component conducts laboratory research and analyses on those medicinal plants which were selected by the ethnomedicinal study. Prior informed consent means that the interviewee must be made aware of the research that will be published for common people. Voucher specimens are collected for each species documented for proper identification and deposition.
