Importance of Herbaria in Pharmacy Education and Research

Popularity among the common people increased the usage of medicinal plants/herbal drugs. Herbal adulteration is one of the common malpractices in herbal raw material trade . Medicinal plants constitute an effective source of traditional (e.g., Ayurvedic, Chinese, Homeopathy and Unani) and modern medicine. Herbal medicine has been shown to have genuine utility A major role of any herbarium is that of education, Most herbaria have collections specifically for use by students. These collections are typically kept separate to prevent unnecessary damage to the permanent collections. The teaching collections, in conjunction with the permanent reference collections, provide materials that are essential for teaching courses such as Plant Taxonomy, Plant Ecology, Plant Kingdom, and Plants and Human Affairs. Learning characteristics of plants, studying relationships between plants, and identifying unknown plants are just a few of the many educational uses for herbarium specimens. Just like a museum or library that offers educational programs and other services to the public, so does the herbarium.