REVIEW ON PHYTOCHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES OF SOME SELECTED GYMNOSPERMS

ABSTRACT Plant-derived substances have recently attracted a lot of attention due to their wide range of applications. Plants are the most abundant bio-resource in traditional medicine, food supplements, folk medicine, pharmaceutical intermediates, and chemical entities for synthetic drug development. At the moment, naturally occurring phytochemicals are a hot topic in science. Technically, the term "phytochemical" refers to all naturally occurring chemical compounds found in plants, with a focus on physiologically active phytochemicals. Fundamental phytochemical investigations should be encouraged, especially in view of the urgent need to discover new bioactive molecules with greater efficacy and less side effects than existing drugs. Gymnosperms, a group of Spermatophytes are evergreen trees with soft woods and characterized by the presence of cones with naked seeds, whose evolutionary history dates back 300 million years are well-known for their therapeutic significance in a variety of medical systems, including contemporary medicine, folk medicine, and traditional medicine.Gymnosperm plants are now mostly planted in gardens. Apart from decoration, gymnosperm plants were also utilized in medicine. So this review sheds a light on the medicinal potentiality of Platycladus orientalis, Araucaria heterophylla, Cycas revoluta, Thuja occidentalis and juniperus virginiana