ABSTRACT
Thyme is recognized as an important medicinal plant with widespread medical applications due to its large supply of essential oil and valuable secondary metabolites, including thymol and carvacrol. Plants are exposed to some abiotic stresses, which can reduce and limit crop productivity. Plants have no option but to avoid these stimuli because they are immobile, and so they have evolved a variety of strategies to deal with the threat of stress. They detect environmental stress, become activated, and then create suitable cellular responses. Secondary metabolites are crucial in plants’ adaptability to changing environmental and stressful circumstances. Plant secondary metabolites are impacted by biotic and abiotic stresses. These tensions can alter secondary metabolite synthesis in medicinal and aromatic plants. Abiotic stress (drought, salinity, heavy metals) causes reactive oxygen species (ROS) development in plant cell cellular parts. Abiotic stress influences secondary metabolites of the medicinal plant Thymus vulgaris, as investigated in this chapter.
