Kew Medicinal Plant Name Services

MPNS has built upon Kew’s existing plant name resources to create an authoritative database of medicinal plants and their names. Up to date taxonomy is linked to pharmaceutical, drug, common and scientific names as they are used in the relevant literature and legislation. The MPNS Resource currently covers approximately 25,000 species, corresponding to 32,600 unique scientific names used in the medicinal plant literature. It links these to 101,000 non-scientific names and to over 250,000 scientific names (synonyms) from Kew’s taxonomic resources drawn from the botanical and wider literature. The inclusion of non-scientific names (trade, pharmaceutical and common names in many languages) makes Kew’s taxonomic information more accessible and relevant to a wider audience.

This Resource enables us to offer a range of services enabling effective communication about medicinal plants in health, regulation and research. The data in this Resource is publicly available to search via our portal.