Recent Advances in the Phytochemistry of Some Medicinally Important Cassia Species: a Review

Medicinal plants possess unlimited and untapped wealth of chemical compounds with high drug potential which make these plants useful as sources of biomedicines. Cassia species have been of keen interest in phytochemical due to their excellent medicinal values. All Cassia species are an important rich source of secondary metabolites, notably anthraquinone derivatives and has been used in Chinese and Ayurvedic preparations. A review of phytochemistry of some medicinally important Cassia species has been presented, considering the fact that there are about 580 species of this genus scattered all around the world. Only 46 species have been phytochemically studied. Hence, in the present article, an attempt has been made to overview phytochemical studies in Cassia species which serves as a potential source for contribution in the modern system of herbal medicine.