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Constituents and Biological Activities of some Iranian Artemisia species

Abdolhossein Rustaiyan and Afsaneh Faridchehr

Plants play a vital role in maintaining human health and contribute towards improvement of human life. They are important components of medicines, cosmetics, dyes, beverages etc. Plants have been one of the important sources of medicines even since the dawn of human civilization. In spite of tremendous development in the field of allopathy during the 20th century, plants still remain one of the major sources of drug in the modern as well as traditional system of medicine throughout the world. Over 60% of all pharmaceuticals are plant-based. Plants are considered as state-of-art chemical laboratories capable of biosynthesizing number of biomolecules of different chemical classes. The present review describes the chemical and biological activities of some Iranian Artemisia species: A. aucheri Boiss., A. austriaca Jacq., A. chamaemelifolia Vill, A. ciniformis Krasch, A. deserti Krasch and A. diffusa. Krasch.