Advances in chemical compositions and pharmacological properties of Alchornea plants.

Survey of national and international literature showed the presence of about seventy kinds of Alchornea plants which possess great diversities in their chemical compositions and pharmacological characteristics.This provides vast importance in exploring their medicinal and development value.Research progress on chemical compositions and pharmacological characteristics of Alchornea plant has been discussed in detail.It was pointed out that about 10 kinds of Alchornea plants were studied in detail while others are still remained to be exploited.It has been suggested that the researches on Alchornea should be carried out in order to study their medicinal value for providing benefit to human health.