REVIEW ON PHYTOCHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES OF SOME SELECTED GYMNOSPERMS

ABSTRACT

Plant-derived substances have recently attracted a lot of attention due to their wide
range of applications. Plants are the most abundant bio-resource in traditional
medicine, food supplements, folk medicine, pharmaceutical intermediates, and
chemical entities for synthetic drug development. At the moment, naturally occurring
phytochemicals are a hot topic in science. Technically, the term "phytochemical"
refers to all naturally occurring chemical compounds found in plants, with a focus on
physiologically active phytochemicals. Fundamental phytochemical investigations
should be encouraged, especially in view of the urgent need to discover new bioactive
molecules with greater efficacy and less side effects than existing drugs.
Gymnosperms, a group of Spermatophytes are evergreen trees with soft woods and
characterized by the presence of cones with naked seeds, whose evolutionary history
dates back 300 million years are well-known for their therapeutic significance in a
variety of medical systems, including contemporary medicine, folk medicine, and
traditional medicine.Gymnosperm plants are now mostly planted in gardens. Apart
from decoration, gymnosperm plants were also utilized in medicine. So this review
sheds a light on the medicinal potentiality of Platycladus orientalis, Araucaria
heterophylla, Cycas revoluta, Thuja occidentalis and juniperus virginiana.