Have you visited a Botanical garden recently and wondered why all of these magnificent plants (ex situ) have been amassed in one place?
Whilst today, we view a Botanical garden as being a place of recreation, to the Botanist, plant hunter, Doctors and scientists, who collected and nurtured them, they represented a more serious side to horticulture.
Over 50% of prescription drugs are derived from naturally occurring chemicals found in plants.
Now, a global study has found that many of the important plants, such as Magnolia - used to treat Cancer sufferers - are disappearing at an alarming rate, which in turn, may lead to a crisis in world health.
Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), who commission a report, have called for urgent action to protect medicinal plants fro catastrophe.
he BGCI report says that there was a time when scientists thought the world could synthesise the chemicals that were found naturally.
However, there seems to be conclusive evidence that we will continually reliant on plants and, if action is not taken soon, this reliance will lead to massive shortages and ecological damage.
An example is given in the report of how the Cancer drug Paclitaxel, derived from Yew tree (taxus), has such a complex structure that it would prove impossible to reproduce, in a laboratory, from a standing start. What is also clear is the financial implications to the drug companies to even think about synthesising the drug.
But, for this avoidance, there is an ecological price to pay which is unsustainable. With at least six Yew trees needed to produce a single dose of Paclitaxel, the wild Yew population has been wiped out.
China's Yunnan Province has lost over 80% of the wild Yew population in around three years, leading to a real threat of extinction.
Going about our daily business, I am sure we do not consider ourselves to be consumers of endangered plants species. However, plants such as Hoodia gordonii, which originates in Namibia, has been used by tribesman for centuries to stave off hunger on long hunting trips.
Once Pfizer expressed an interest in the Hoodia's appetite suppressing properties, huge quantities were removed from it's natural habitat in speculation at the plant's ability to suppress obesity. Yet Hoodia is still not farmed commercially.
The bark of Magnolia is used in chewing gum as it has been proven to kill over 60 percent of bacteria in the mouth - mouth wash kills approx. 3%).
We have the ability to put back as much as we consume yet there appears to be a vacuum and the BGCI are campaigning to raise awareness before it is too late.
Further reading.
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