The Importance of Neglected and Underutilized Medicinal Plants from South America in Modern Pharmaceutical Sciences

The world needs a paradigm change from the current views on many plants to secure future food and nutrition. Many neglected and underutilized plants, specially medicinal and aromatic plants, are nutrient dense, appropriate in diversifying diets, provide enough vitamins and micronutrients for people, high resistant to diseases and pests, and can be adapted in many regions and of course with tremendous pharmaceutical benefits. Many of the medicinal plant species which were common in traditional medicine are still neglected and underutilized, especially in developing and under-developing countries. Lack of attention to these plants means their potential medicinal properties are under-exploited and underestimated. The searches focused on publications from 1980 to July 2021 using PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, and Scopus databases. Review of the literature was carried out using the following keywords, "medicinal plants", "neglected plants", "underutilized plants", "aromatic plants", "traditional medicine science", and "South America". In this review article, the authors have focused on medicinal values of Schinusterebinthifolius, Uncaria tomentosa, Phyllanthusamarus, Astrocaryum aculeatum, Croton cajucara, Arrabidaea chica, Bauhinia forticata, Copaifera langsdorffii, Cordia verbenacea, Caesalpinia ferrea, Salix alba L., Casearia sylvestris, Carapa guianensis, Costus spicatus, and Eugenia uniflora L., in both modern and traditional science. Although many studies have evaluated the biological characteristics of these plants, little has been done to identify and characterize its chemical components, which is certainly a niche that requires to be further explored.