Dear Colleagues,

Medicinal plants, either cultivated or collected from wild populations, are the raw materials for both traditional and modern medicines. Many plants valued for their aromatic properties are used not only in the pharmaceutical industry, but also in the food and condiment industry, perfumery, or even in agriculture. The introduction into cultivation and the selection and/or breeding of high-value cultivars have an adverse effect on the genetic diversity of the cultivated species. Likewise, collection from wild populations, especially overexploitation, also reduces the species’ genetic polymorphism. Furthermore, the accelerated change of climate and environmental factors also does not favor the slow process of adaptation, which again results in the loss of the species’ genetic potential. For these reasons, assessing the genetic diversity of medicinal and aromatic plants is a continuous and, given the high number of species, never-ending story and a duty of the researchers engaged in the field. Knowledge of the available genetic polymorphism might aid in the breeding or the conservation and protection of endangered species. One can choose from a wide range of molecular markers for studying genetic diversity, starting from random, not sequence-specific markers to more specific markers such as microsatellites to the most state-of-the-art SNP markers.

In the Special Issue of Agriculture, our aim is to collect the most recent results of studies on the genetic diversity of both cultivated and collected medicinal and aromatic plant species. We welcome submissions in the form of original papers on the recent advances of genetic studies of the field.

Kind regards,
Dr. Zsuzsanna György
Guest Editor

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• genetic polymorphism
• medicinal herb
• wild medicinal and aromatic plants
• cultivated medicinal and aromatic plants
• molecular markers
• nuclear markers
• chloroplast markers
• population structure
• cultivars
• chemotypes
• haplotypes