抄録
Botanical gardens originated from herb gardens where medical and pharmacy students were educated on medicinal plants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Later, during the Industrial Revolution, European powers used botanical gardens to introduce and cultivate industrially useful plants from abroad for production on plantations in their colonies. Today, botanical gardens are not just flower parks, but serve as research institutions that use their plant collect ion and cultivation skills to conserve plant diversity and its industrial application. One of the most important research activities in botanical gardens is the analysis of plant diversity, for which a process called plant inventory will be implemented to comprehensively collect native plants in the particular field, prepare herbarium specimens, and perform taxonomic identification. In the process of plant inventorying, plants potentially useful as horticultural plants, agricultural crops or pharmacologically active plants will be discovered, and information on their distribution will be accumulated. Thus, plant inventory is closely linked to the industrial application of plant resources. As an example of such activities, the plant inventory in Myanmar towards finding novel pharmaceuticals and/or nutraceuticals by The Kochi Prefectural Makino Botanical Garden is described.
