Medicinal Plant Names Services

18/01/2024

🌺We’re delighted to announce the release of Version 13 of MPNS, which includes 157 new data sources and offers new insight into the use of medicinal plants around the world.

You can read more about it in our latest newsletter https://mailchi.mp/b39db31aa6c8/mpns-v12-is-live-6258637

Or you can begin exploring the data in our portal https://mpns.science.kew.org/

We have just published Version 11 of MPNS with details of the names and substances derived from more than 34,000 medicinal plants.

20/03/2019

Our latest newsletter announcing an updated version of our portal, which now includes:

• over 0.5 million plant name records
• records from 153 references
• c. 27,000 plants from 383 families
• 247,000 scientific names
• 104,000 non-scientific names

Exciting news - new portal - more plants

02/03/2019

Opportunity for an undergraduate student to work with us on a year placement on the project 'Evaluating, analysing and mobilising Kew’s data on medicinal plants', one of seven projects for science undergraduates - https://careers.kew.org/vacancy/science-undergraduate-interns-x-7-379651.html

07/01/2019

Work with us! We have a vacancy for an 18 month post as Content Editor -

"It is an exciting time to join Kew and, in particular, the Plants & Fungal Names Curation team as we embark on period of innovation and transformation.

Kew’s Medicinal Plant Names Services (MPNS) employs Kew’s globally recognised taxonomic and nomenclatural references to support health professionals, regulators, practitioners, the trade and natural product scientists in finding and communicating reliably data concerning medicinal plants. We seek to expand the scope to include food supplements and plants that are poisonous or responsible for allergenic reactions."

html and css examples for the basic Kew gardens template

17/08/2018

We are recruiting! - content editor

html and css examples for the basic Kew gardens template

14/05/2018

We are often asked why people should use the MPNS portal rather than The Plant List to check their scientific plant names, so we have given a full answer in our latest newsletter -

Possibly the most common question we receive concerns why the scientific nomenclature followed by MPNS differs from that in The Plant List...

14/05/2018

Our article 'Navigating the Plant Names Jungle' recently appeared in the magazine of the Uppsala Monitoring Centre, with some nice illustrations!

Uppsala Reports Issue 78

06/03/2018

In this issue of the newsletter we respond to one of our more frequent requests, how should researchers cite medicinal plant names?

http://mailchi.mp/e79025e336a7/best-practice-guidelines-for-using-medicinal-plant-names

05/02/2018

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/500-years-of-medicine-the-1500s-magic-and-medicine-tickets-42863440705

Join the Royal College of Physicians for the first in a series of free special lectures marking its 500th anniversary, reflecting on the history of medicine, society, scholarship and the college itself over the last five centuries. The opening chapter in this astonishing story focuses on the 1500s.....

18/10/2017

Our article "A review of issues of nomenclature and taxonomy of Hypericum perforatum L." is now available online as an open access 'early view', in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. We reviewed names used in regulation and found that the scientific name Hypericum perforatum L. is used consistently in the literature (unlike many other medicinal plants which are referred to by several names). However, we also found that variation between subspecies is rarely considered by researchers. The article gives an overview of these different subspecies, and the taxonomy of the genus Hypericum.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jphp.12831/epdf

19/07/2017

Pomegranates ripening here in Granada. The scientific name is Punica granatum, from the Latin punica meaning 'scarlet' and granatum meaning 'having many seeds'. The name pomegranate comes from a combination of the French and/or medieval Latin for apple, pomme, or pomum. In Spanish Granada means pomegranate, and the fruit is the symbol of the city and the region, that can be seen everywhere on doors, pavements, bollards... Though the name of the city originates from the Arabic ḡarnāṭa, thought to mean 'hill of strangers'. The pomegranate season in Spain is from around October to January.