A comprehensive review on Meliaceae family

Abstract

The study deals with review on Medicinal plant family- Meliaceae. This is also called as Mahogany family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of trees, shrubs. Present Review covers 25 important genus and important species in respective genus. Trees of the genus Swietenia and Entandrophragma, commonly called mahogany, and of the genus Cedrela (especially the cigar-box cedar, C. odorata) are economically important timber trees.  A few members of Meliaceae have edible fruits. Lansium domesticum (langsat) and Sandoricum koetjape (santol) are popular species. The principal chemical constituents are limonoids and terpenoids as major. Besides this alkaloids flavanoids, coumarins, chromones, lignans and phenolic compounds are also present in major quantity. The drugs of this family majorly used as cytotoxic activity and antimicrobial activity, insect anti-feedant anti-malarial activity.