Abstract

URTICA (NETTLE) SPECIES OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE – A MINIREVIEW

Abdullatif Azab*

Abstract

Urtica (Nettle) species are well known in the “Old World” for their painful stings. This property attracted human attention since antiquity and humans used these plants for various medicinal purposes, and for limited nutrition. Modern research approved the ethnomedicinal uses and expanded them, especially anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial. Four species of Urtica grow wild in the reviewed region (RR) of Israel and Palestine. Two of them were reasonably studied and published while the other two were hardly published. In this review article ethnopharmacological knowledge will be presented in summary, along with modern research findings. Selected natural products that were isolated from these species will be shown in clear figures.

Keywords: Urtica, Urtica pilulifera, Urtica urens, anticancer, antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, nutrition, ethnomedicine, chemical composition.