RRJoB (2016) 24-31 © STM Journals 2016. All Rights Reserved Page 24 Research & Reviews: Journal of Botany ISSN: 2278-2222(online) Volume 5, Issue 3 www.stmjournals.com Conspectus of Phytochemical Constituents of Euphorbia wallichii Hook. f.: A Review Afrozah Hassan 1 , Ubaid Yaqoob 1, *, Irshad Ahmad Nawchoo 1 , Shabana Gulzar 1 , G.G. Mohi-ud-din 2 , Sumeera Nazir 1 , Asma Ashraf 1 1 Plant Reproductive Biology, Genetic Diversity and Phytochemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India 2 Department of Botany, Government Degree College for Women, Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir, India Abstract This review is an attempt to assess the phytochemical potential of the genus Euphorbia and covers the pharmacological and ethnopharmacological activities of some isolated chemical constituents with a special emphasis on E. wallichii. The present work is an extensive review of literature in relation to the phytochemistry of the genus and reveals the literature up to date review on the newly isolated chemical compounds, their medicinal importance and preclinical studies on some crude extracts to explore novel bioactive compounds for therapeutic application. Plants of the genus Euphorbia are known to possess considerable medicinal and economic importance being used to treat inflammatory disorders, bronchitis and rheumatism, asthma, gonorrhoea, migraine, skin irritation, warts and are also used as anti-cancer. Euphorbia species also possess cytotoxicity, antipyretic-analgesic activity; inhibit HIV-1 viral infection, and have antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. Terpenes including diterpenes and triterpenes, steroids, cerebrosides, glycerols, phenolics and flavonoids have been frequently found in Euphorbia species. The extracts of the plant species, the newly isolated compounds and their medicinal importance may be helpful in pharmacological investigation and in depth chemical elucidation. The collected information reviewed here provides a resource for future ethnopharmacological, pharmacological and phytochemical studies of the medicinally important genus. Keywords: Antimicrobial, compounds, ethnopharmacology, crude extracts, phytochemistry *Author for Correspondence E-mail: ubaidyaqoob@yahoo.in INTRODUCTION Plants have served mankind as sources of medicinal agents since from earliest beginning. Paleolithic people had acquaintance of herbal medicine as evident from the plant samples gathered from prehistoric burial sites. For instance, a 60,000 year-old Neanderthal burial site “Shanidar IV” in northern Iraq has yielded large amounts of pollen from eight plant species, seven of which are used now as herbal remedies [1]. Rigveda (3700 BC) also mentions the use of medicinal plants. Today natural products, their derivatives and their analogs still constitute over 50% of all drugs in clinical use with higher plant-derived natural products [2]. It has been reported that 35,000 to 70,000 plant species have medicinal importance [3, 4]. Natural products continue to play an important role in drug discovery programs of the pharmaceutical industry and other research organizations. The use of natural products as a source of lead compounds results in the molecular diversity of the isolated compounds [5]. Since ancient times, through the Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani systems, medicinal use of plants has been practiced by various rural and tribal communities [6]. Commonly known as 'spurges' the genus Euphorbia L. is one of the six largest genera of flowering plants having 2160 species [7]. Euphorbiaceae is the sixth largest and one of the most diversified families of angiosperms, consisting of about 300 genera and over 8000 species [8, 9]. Estimates of the number of species in the family vary from 3000 to 8000 [10] and reaches to 8910 species in flora of China [11]. The Euphorbiaceae displays an extraordinary range of growth forms, ranging