Competitive Biodiversity of Human and Vascular Plant Species: The Implications for Pharmaceutical Industries, Health and World Economy Part- 2

Abstract

Aims: The world population is increasing at alarming rate vis-à-vis the need for health and many vascular medicinal plants are being destroyed. So we risk upsetting the ecological balance of the earth. Methodology: To avoid ecological health disaster, literature survey of human, vascular plants and vascular medicinal plants populations was carried out with a view to determining their relationship with health and economic development. Results: A total of 210 countries and Islands with human population (7,423,552,000), area (133,484,423.4 km2) and population density (55.61 per km2) were recorded. The survey of vascular plant species revealed 1,855,563 higher plants, 157,346 medicinal plants and 154,308 endemic plants in 115 countries respectively. Columbia has the highest number of plant species (50,000) in the world. Whereas China has the highest number of human (1,339,190,000) and discovered medicinal plants (11,146). Asteraceae has the largest number of vascular plant species (25,000). Conclusion: The estimated higher number of vascular plant species, medicinal plants and endemic plants may be due to further discovery, synonym in their names, similarity in their morphology and repeated countings. The increased world population and over exploitation of medicinal plants may pose risk of rarity, extinct, and endanger to some plants with high therapeutic potentials.