Full Length Review Paper Ipomoea cairica: a medicinal weed with promising health benefits Deepa Srivastava and Shukla, K. Department of Botany, D.D.U Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, India *Corresponding Author Received 10 th April 2015; Published 31 th May 2015 Abstract Ipomoea cairica (Convolvulaceae) is a weed of waste areas, disturbed sites, rainforest margins, open woodlands, bush-land, gardens, fences, coastal sand dunes and vegetation growing near waterways (i.e. riparian areas). It inhabits tropical, sub-tropical and warmer temperate environments (especially near the coast).It may be used as carminative agent and lessens inflammation, and is useful in fever, jaundice, biliousness, bronchitis, liver complaints, etc Recent reports supports that it can also be used for treatment of Japanese encephalitis because of its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. The objective of this review is to highlight the morphological, phytochemical, and pharmacological information of this plant Keywords: Jaundice, Biliousness, Bronchitis, Liver Complaints, Phytochemical. Copyright © Deepa Srivastava and.Shukla. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To cite this paper: Deepa Srivastava and Shukla, 2015. Ipomoea cairica: a medicinal weed with promising health benefits, International Journal of Information Research and Review, Vol. 2, Issue, 05, pp. 687-694. INTRODUCTION Knowledge of herbs has been handed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. The revival of interest in natural drugs started in last decade mainly because of the wide spread belief that green medicine is healthier than synthetic products. In the recent past, there has been a tremendous increase in the use of plant-based health products in developing as well as developed countries resulting in an exponential growth of herbal products globally. According to the WHO, about 80% of the population in the world relay on the traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases (Padmaa, et al., 2010). However, due to over population, urbanization, and continuous exploitation of these herbal reserves, the natural resources along with their related traditional knowledge are depleting day by day (Pande et al., 2007). In the present era of drug development and discovery of newer drug molecules, many plant products are evaluated on the basis of their traditional uses. In this regard, one of the many plants which are being evaluated for their therapeutic efficacies is Ipomoea cairica (Convolvulaceae) which is a perennial herb of unknown origin, possibly tropical Africa and Asia (Austin and Huaman, 1996); widely cultivated, now distributed nearly pantropically. Grows in disturbed sites, such as roadsides and waste-ground in urban areas, and is invasive of natural habitats, especially along river banks and coastal dunes. It Flowers throughout the year aqueous extract from I. cairica showed anti-RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) activity in vitro (Ma et al., 2002). The ethanolic extract of this plant presents an antinociceptive effect (Ferreira et al., 2006). Arctigenin was the most cytotoxic and presents also antioxidant and anti- inflammatory activities (Cho et al., 2004), as well as, inhibited the replication of human immunodeficiency virus (Eich et al., 1996). The essential oil of I. cairica possesses remarkable larvicidal properties. It could induce 100% mortality in the larvae of Culex tritaeniorhynchus (100 ppm), Aedes aegypti (120 ppm), Anopheles stephensi (120 ppm) and Culex quinquefasciatus (170ppm) (Thomas et al., 2004; Lallianrawna et al., 2014). In Brazilian system of medicine, Ipomoea cairica has been used for treatment of inflammation and rheumatism (Saied et al., 2011). The aim of this review is to highlight the Morphological, phytochemical, and pharmacological investigation carried out on the plant so that more pharmacological studies could be conducted to investigate the unexploited potential. Scientific Name Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet Synonyms Convolvulus cairicus L. Convolvulus pendulus (R. Br.) Spreng. Ipomoea palmata Forssk. Ipomoea pendula R. Br. Ipomoea tuberculata (Desr.) Roem. andSchult. ISSN: 2349-9141 Available online at http://www.ijirr.com International Journal of Information Research and Review Vol. 2, Issue, 05, pp. 687-694, May, 2015 OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL