Therefore, the tendency in worldwide research has focused more on the search for new medicines and active compounds of MAPs rather than on the cultivation and/or domestication of the plant species with this characteristic potential. Nowadays, the application of MAPs is increasing due to their rich capacity for the treatment of diverse maladies and their fewer side effects.
As one of the significant bio-resource centers of the world, the Asian continent accounts for over 38,660 species of MAPs (Medicinal and Aromatic Plants). Of the 422,000 species of vascular plants in the world, 50,000–80,000 of them are used medicinally and contain valuable ethnobotanical and remedial information that could navigate new drug exploration. Furthermore, identifying the areas of endemism (AEs) is an essential part of ongoing regional conservation management programs in Iran and worldwide. Therefore, there is an urgent need to conserve and propagate some of these important MAPs to save them from extinction and also to ensure the availability of raw materials for their use and future research into their efficacy. Many of these MAPs are at the edge of extinction due to the unwise, unscientific harvesting and/or global climate change. The north, center and western parts of Iran are rich in MAPs and could be considered as the dominant biodiversity hotspots of Iran more seemingly due to the diverse climatic and geographic assortment which generates the highest frequency and distribution of MAPs. So, Iran-o-Turanian region is the main center of diversity for the Iranian endemic MAPs.
These provinces are located in the Iran-o-Turanian region, one of the three major phytogeographic regions in Iran, which covers five areas of endemism (i.e., Azarbaijan, Zagros, Kopet Dagh-Khorassan, Alborz, and Central Alborz).
Approximately 70% of these plants have been recorded in the 10 provinces of Esfahan, Kerman, Fars, Tehran, Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari, East Azarbaijan, Lorestan, West Azarbaijan, Hamadan, and Mazandaran. The majority of species are found in Lamiaceae, Fabaceae, and Apiaceae, with 86, 30, and 18 species, respectively. Our survey found 180 endemic species of MAPs, belonging to 10 families and 30 genera. Here, we compile information about the endemic medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) of Iran and map their distributions. Approximately 2300 of the 8200 species are popularly characterized as medicinal or aromatic. Iran, with its unique climatic and topographic conditions, is home to about 8200 species of vascular plants.
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