Bryophytes as potential medicinal herbal raw materials: Folk medicine and modern research: ethnomedicine, bryophytes, Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, phytotherapy:
Bryophytes as potential medicinal herbal raw materials - folk medicine and modern studies
Bryophytes are a common element of flora found on all continents. Their therapeutic use is a margin of both traditional and conventional medicine. From a scientific phytochemistry perspective, they are still a poorly understood and described group of plants. There are studies indicating that bryophyte tissues contain numerous bioactive compounds of an antibacterial, antifungal or anticancer nature. Antioxidant potential of extracts obtained from some bryophytes has also been demonstrated.

 

Mosses and liverworts belonging to bryophytes can prove to be a treasury of a huge number of substances with therapeutic potential. This is especially true for liverworts. These plants are characterized by small size and slow growth. The high content of bioactive substances in bryophyte tissues is probably due to evolutionary reasons. During the history of species development, higher plants developed external structures, such as spines, to protect them from animals. Bryophytes have chosen a different strategy of survival, "investing" in chemical safeguards. By developing an arsenal of compounds with bioactive potential, they retained their original small size and primitive morphology.

The role of substances contained in bryophyte tissues is, for example, to protect against insect eating or fungal and bacterial diseases. There is a chance that the same chemical compounds may prove useful in the treatment of human diseases. We know from research that mosses and liverworts contain various types of potentially useful substances, such as oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, sugar alcohols, amino acids and fatty acids. Another important task is to combine the phytochemical composition of these herbal raw materials with therapeutic effects.

 

The use of bryophytes in traditional medicine

Bryophytes have found various uses in traditional ethnomedicines around the world. There are sources indicating that the Chinese, Indians and Native Americans used mosses as a valuable herbal raw material. In traditional Chinese medicine, species belonging to the pollen moss (Polytrichum sp.) Were considered herbs with diuretic and antipyretic properties. Records regarding the use of mosses come from Chinese books from the 11th century. In traditional Chinese medicine, as many as 40 species of bryophytes have been assigned medicinal properties. Recommendations for their use included conditions such as tonsillitis, urinary tract diseases, and bronchitis. Mosses were also used as dressings used for burns and skin diseases. The Seminole Indians used mosses of the species Barbula unguiculata, Bryum capillare and Octoblepharum albidum as anti-inflammatory drugs. These raw materials were also used in the form of external compresses.

It is often the case that the use of bryophytes in ethnomedicines does not translate into subsequent clinical and preclinical results. This is due to the fact that many plant species have been attributed therapeutic properties, guided by the belief that the medical strength of the herb is inscribed in its appearance. For example, multiform liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha) was a drug used for liver disease, not because of its actual properties, but because of its shape resembling that organ. This was not an isolated case. Riccia bryophytes were used in the Himalayas to fight lichens and mycoses. This therapeutic recommendation was guided by a round shape of the thallus resembling skin lesions. Studies on Riccia fluitans indicate that the plant does not contain compounds with bactericidal or anti-fungal activity.