Chemotaxonomic authentication: importance and implications in herbal medicine practice

The use of herbs and herbal products is on the rise and becoming more popular and acceptable to the populace Worldwide, this is as a result of the numerous biochemical evaluations of some of these plant materials supporting their efficacy and safety. Nevertheless the inconsistence and non reproducible results obtained in practice is a great challenge to the Traditional Medical practitioners, especially in Africa, this is due to the non availability of instruments and competent hands for constituents standardization of their raw materials. The correct identification or authentication of the plant materials, time of harvest, location of plantation and processing are all factors that affect the reproducibility of the efficacy of these herbal medicines. In this report we discuss some practical challenges encountered with the hypoestes spp, regarding establishing plantations and the effects of seasonal variation on its bioactive components.