The Kew Gardens estate, located in West London (Great Britain), is home to one of the most important plant collections on the planet. It is also a botanical research center which has just published the second edition of its “State of the world’s plants”, a report which lists all the medicinal plants used in the world.
According to the 128 scientists from 12 countries who worked on this report, there are more than 28,000 plants with medicinal properties, a figure up 59% from 2016.
9 new species to treat Parkinson’s disease
In the past year, scientists have counted 1,730 new plant species, including 5 new species of Manihot from Brazil (including cassava and tapioca) “which have the potential to increase cassava crops by diversifying them”, thus constituting “food from the future” said Monique Simmonds, Associate Scientific Director of Kew Gardens. They also discovered 9 new species of climbing vines from the Mucuna family, used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
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