Feature Papers on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

Dear Colleagues,

The term “medicinal and aromatic plants” (MAPs) includes a large number of species, annual or perennial, herbs, shrubs, and trees, whose common feature is the ability to produce and accumulate one or more secondary metabolites able to generate specific medicinal or aromatic properties. The use of MAPs crosses almost all historical periods and geographical areas, and there is practically no culture on Earth—in the past or the present—that has not relied on MAPs as important natural resources for supplying medicines, aromas, and raw matter for human needs. Today, MAPs are acknowledged as playing a crucial role within the strategic priorities for rural development, according to the basic principles of multifunctionality, sustainability, and diversification. In this scenario, research on MAPs can be approached under many different and equally valuable points of view, including traditional and novel utilizations, ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology, phytochemical and botanical characterization, physiology of metabolic patterns, domestication and crop management, agroforestry, and economic and industrial implications.

This Special Issue accepts contributions covering all research aspects related to MAPs, from the discovery and valorization of plants’ potentialities to their open field cultivation, through the overlapping sectors of botany, agronomy, agroforestry, plant physiology, chemistry, and food technology.

Original research and review papers are welcome. Papers chosen for publication will be selected by a rigorous peer-review procedure with the aim of rapid dissemination of the research results.

Key topics in this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:

• Mapping and characterization of wild populations of MAPs;
• Breeding and selection of MAPs;
• Propagation and in vitro techniques;
• Ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology;
• Phytotherapy, phytochemistry, and phytopharmacology;
• Essential oils and secondary metabolites;
• Organic and conventional cropping management of MAPs;
• MAPs in agroforestry;
• Novel uses of MAPs: bioherbicides and biopesticides;
• MAPs as food additives.

Dr. Alessandra Carrubba
Dr. Mauro Sarno
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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