Bryophytes - The Ignored Medicinal Plants Afroz Alam* 1 , Vinay Shrama 1 , K. K. Rawat 2 and P. K. Verma 3 1 Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Banasthali University, Rajasthan-304022 2 CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow-226 001, India 3 Shifting Cultivation Division, Rain Forest Research Institute, Sotai Ali, Jorhat-785001, Assam, India * Corresponding author’s email: afrozalamsafvi@gmail.com Manuscript received : 26.11.2014 Manuscript accepted: 15.12.2014 Abstract Information about the occurrence of antibiotic substances in bryophytes and the medicinal use of bryophytes are sporadic, particularly in India, in comparison to developed countries. Despite of a long history of medicinal use of bryophytes by various tribal and local communities across the world, their significant utilization in medicines is still a dream due to lack of concise ethnobotanical information, scarcity of material, degrading habitats etc. Present article is an attempt to create awareness about this group of plants. Introduction Humans recognize their environs at a certain spatial and temporal scale. Unlike other gigantic plants, most measurements of morphological features in bryophytes (Lilliputians/amphibians of plant kingdom) are in micrometers or millimeters, centimeters at the largest. They also lie on the less important and low visible places and hence they are often unnoticed by humans. Therefore, bryophytes are less noticeable than vascular plants and remain underexplored in many aspects including their medicinal value. In comparison to other plant groups, bryophytes are exploited in 299