Abelmoschus is a genus of about fifteen species belongs to the family Malvaceae. The herb, popularly known as Lady's Finger or Okra (in English) is a nutritional source used for both medicinal and culinary purposes. The plant is widely distributed from Africa to Asia, Southern Europe, and America. This comprehensive account provides a botanical description of the plant, its phytochemical constituents and pharmacological activities focusing anti-diabetic, anti-oxidant, anti-adhesive, gastro-protective, hepatoprotective, and immunomodulating actions. Most of the pharmacological effects can be explained by the constituents like tannins, terpenoids, flavonoids and glycosides present in all plant parts. However, future efforts should concentrate more on in vitro and in vivo studies and also on clinical trials in order to confirm traditional wisdom in the light of a rational phytotherapy. The present review is an overview of phytochemistry and ethnopharmacological studies that support many of the traditional ethnomedicinal uses of the plant.

Devil’s cotton (Ulatkambal) is a genus in the family Malvaceae, with one or two species from Asia and Australia. Literature review revealed that Abroma augusta (Devil’s cotton) is widely used in Ayurvedic medicine as a popular drug. Devil’s cotton has been claimed to possess major biological activities like anti-diabetic, analgesic, anti-inflamatory, thrombolytic, antioxidant, hypolipidemic etc. They are also utilized by the traditional local healers of different Asian countries to treat various diseases like diabetes mellitus, as uterine tonic in emmerogogue, dysmenorrhea, amenorrhoea, sterility and other menstrual disorders, rheumatic pains of joints and headache with sinusitis. Biochemical profiling of different parts of the plant demonstrated the presence of some important phytochemicals like alkaloids, abromin, sterol, friedelin, abromasterol, taroxerylacetate, taraxeral and β-sitosterol. The aim of this review was to analyze the published report based on the medicinal values of Devil’s cotton species as well to provide the updated information about the ethnomedicinal, pharmacological as well as the phytochemical properties. Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 22(1): 109-116, 2019

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