A virtual Garden Guide complements the visit to the Philippine Biorepository Network medicinal plants garden. Each featured medicinal plant is tagged with a QR code providing its botanical identity and a brief information on its medicinal value. Scientific names were referred to The Plant List (TPL), World Flora Online (WFO), and Plants of the World on Line (POWO). The most popular common name is the one cited. The list of references indicates if the plant is included in the Philippine Pharmacopeia I (PP1), recommended by the Department of Health (DOH), selected by the herbal industry (HI) and/or listed in the Plant Resources of Southeast-Asia (PROSEA) 12: 1 – 3 Medicinal and Poisonous Plants. Popular traditional or folkloric medicinal plants are included, and recent articles published in scientific journals on them are cited when available.
The medicinal plants are not arranged per indication that they address nor by their plant family. The positioning of the plants within the garden site considered their natural habitat, cultural requirement and overall aesthetic value. Where confusion on botanical identity occurs or when ornamental varieties abound, the labelled medicinal plant is positioned close to these other plants for comparison. The garden is the hub for other medicinal plants tagged in the UPLB campus.
Photos and text by Lourdes B. Cardenas (project leader). Web design by Abril A. Moldez (UPLB ITC). Actual softscape establishment done with Melanie B. Ancheta (SRSII), Aaron John Balobalo (Agri Tech 1), Francis A. Aguilar (Project Staff) and John A. Rodriguez (Gardener). Mature trees were planted by Prof. Ludivina S. de Padua in the 1980s.
The project on the establishment of the medicinal plants garden of the Philippine Biorepository Network (PBN) was funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and its implementation monitored by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) under its Tuklas Lunas Program. It was one of five projects under the PBN on Medicinal Plants , collaborating with the Institute of Crops Sciences, CAFS, UPLB; Institute of Biology, CAS, UP Diliman; Philippine Genome Center and Marine Science Institute, UP Diliman. Occasional support had been extended by the Museum of Natural History and the CAFS-IWEP Pest Clinic of UPLB. The Plant Biology Division, Institute of Biological Sciences, CAS-UPLB, is the implementing unit of this endeavour .