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The MPNS Resource

The current version of the Medicinal Plant Names Services (MPNS) Resource is V14, published November 2024.

The Medicinal Plant Names Services (MPNS) Resource contains:

  • all pharmaceutical, herbal drug, common and scientific plant names as cited for plants or herbal drugs in any of the medicinal plant and health regulatory literature reviewed by MPNS to date
  • the parts of the plants used and the form that these herbal drugs cited in those publications
  • an authoritative and current scientific nomenclature, synonymy and taxonomy for these plants drawn from Kew’s botanical reference resources.

Version 14 contains data records

  • drawn from 396 pharmaceutical or medicinal plant publications
  • covering 39,112 plants from 393 families of angiosperms or gymnosperms.

The taxonomy in MPNS is refreshed with each new version to reflect continual improvement of Kew’s global reference resources as they are extended and curated to reflect changes made in recent taxonomic literature.

Using the Resource

The easiest way to access the MPNS Resource is by entering any plant or herbal drug name in the search field above. This will enable you to find, for example:

  • a list of plants associated with your search term
  • the currently accepted scientific name for a plant, all of its synonyms and its plant family
  • the medicinal references which cite this plant and the various (and conflicting) names employed for them
  • which parts of that plant have been used medicinally and in what form

A user might

  • link a herbal drug cited in the 3rd edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia to the name(s) employed for those same plants in the US Herbs of Commerce or
  • obtain a list of all names employed for that plant in the botanical or medicinal literature.
  • search PubMed for ALL publications referring to a plant regardless of which scientific name was used by each publication.

Other MPNS information services are described here.

Headline statistics

Names from the medicinal plant literature

Version 14 of MPNS includes the following names captured from the medicinal literature:

  • 59,470 unique scientific names which were cited 211,672 times.
  • 271,207 unique non-scientific names which were cited 366,516 times including
    • 3,136 unique pharmaceutical names and
    • 268,161 unique herbal drug and common names in multiple languages and scripts.

Names from botanical reference sources

Version 14 of MPNS contains records relating to 39,112 plants for which it contains:

  • 333,653 scientific plant names drawn from Kew’s global taxonomic reference sources
  • 38,889 “Accepted“ names of which
    • 35,477 are of species
    • 3,412 are of subspecies or varieties.
  • 223 provisionally accepted names which remain taxonomically “Unassessed”.
  • 294,541 scientific names known to be “synonyms” for one of the above plants.

NB: Definitions of taxonomic status are given in the MPNS FAQ page.

Medicinal Plant References

The medicinal plant and health regulatory literature reviewed to date can be seen here. The list includes:
•    pharmacopoeias
•    monographs
•    ethnobotanical surveys
•    regional works

References were selected for inclusion guided by the following objectives:

  1. To cover references of regulatory importance, for example pharmacopoeias and the EMA community herbal monographs
  2. To cover references that reflect the most commonly traded medicinal plants
  3. To be global in scope
  4. The source is readily used/accessible and available to us for inclusion in a practical way.

New medicinal plant publications will be added to MPNS improving our coverage of relevant literature.  Please contact us if you know of additional references which you feel should be included.

New References

MPNS Version 14 contains data drawn from 396 medicinal data sources. We have added 35 new data sources including:

3 new global data sources

  • Kew’s Economic Botany Collection Database. RBG, Kew (ed.) (2020). Retrieved using queries to obtain a subset containing all "medicinals". Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.
  • Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases ("Ethnobot" dataset, viewed 23/01/2023). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. (1992-2016).
  • WHODrug Herbal Substances 2024 (data received 01/03/2024). WHO-UMC (ed.) (2024). Uppsala Monitoring Centre, World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring (WHO-UMC), Uppsala, Sweden.

7 new data sources from Africa, e.g.

  • Ghana’s Herbal Market. van Andel, T., Myren, B. & van Onselen, S. (2012). Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 140: 368-378.

11 new data sources from Asia, e.g.

  • Medicinal Plants from Chatkal Biosphere Reserve Used for Folk Medicine in Uzbekistan. Egamberdieva, D., Mamadalieva, N., Khodjimatov, O. & Tiezzi, A. (2012). Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Science and Biotechnology. 6 (1).

3 new data sources from Europe, e.g.

  • Multi-Functionality of the Few: Current and Past Uses of Wild Plants for Food and Healing in Liubań Region, Belarus. Sõukand, R., Hrynevich, Y., Vasilyeva, I., Prakofjewa, J., Vnukovich, Y., Paciupa, J., Hlushko, A., Knureva, Y., Litvinava, Y., Vyskvarka, S., Silivonchyk, H., Paulava, A., Kõiva, M. & Kalle, R. (2017). Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 13: 10.

6 new data sources from South America, e.g.

  • Medicinal Plants Sold at Traditional Markets in Southern Ecuador. Tinitana, F., Rios, M., Romero-Benavides, J.C., de la Cruz Rot, M. & Pardo-de-Santayana, M. (2016). Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 12: 29.

5 new data sources from Australia, Caribbean, Middle East and elsewhere, e.g.

  • Common Medicinal Plants of Portland, Jamaica (2nd edn). Summer, A. & Thomas, M.B. (eds.) (2009). CIEER, Inc., Unites States of America.
  • Ethnobotanical Survey of the Medicinal Plants in the Central Mountains (North-South) in Jordan. Oran, S.A.S. & Al-Eisawi, D.M.H. (2015). Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences. 6 (3): 381-400.

Details of all data sources cited can be seen here.

We continue to add references to improve global coverage. We seek partnerships with those managing ethnobotanical or pharmacovigilance resources for whom we will update and enrich their plant names content in return for including their plant names records in MPNS.

Version History

  • Version 14.0 – from 24 October 2024
  • Version 13.0 – from 05 December 2023
  • Version 12.0 – from 17 January 2023
  • Version 11.0 – from 1 December 2021
  • Version 10.0 – from 28 February 2021
  • Version 9.0 – from 16 January 2020
  • Version 8.0 – from 8 May 2018
  • Version 7.0 – from 11 May 2017
  • Version 6.0 – from 5 October 2016
  • Version 5.0 – from 6 July 2016
  • Version 4.0 – from 21 March 2016
  • Version 3.0 – from 14 October 2015  
  • Version 2.0 – from 1 May 2015 
  • Version 1.0 – from 2 Sept 2014