Chemical Diversity and Ethnopharmacological Survey of South American Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Species

The present chapter is a short review providing information about the chemical constituents of some South American plant species used by local communities in countries of this continent except the Falkland Islands and Surinam. Many plants found in the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela have valuable phytotherapeutic applications in alternative medicine. This chapter presents information reported in the scientific literature concerning the most significant plant families used in folk medicine, considering their chemical compositions and highlighting the following categories: alkaloids, an important class of biologically active compounds; phenolics, especially flavonoids; and essential oils.