Plants from Api aceae family are commonly used for food, flavoring, fragrance and medical purposes; they are also known to be used as a household remedies sinoe antiquity. Recently, many experimental and biological investigations have been carried out in on:ler to validate the ethno-medicinal claims of plants belonging to this family. Moreover, rediscovery of this family can be responsible for launching a new generation of botanical chemicals for industrial applications. This review paper may help upcoming research activities on Apiaoeae family membersby giving up to date information on their main common features, their origins and traditional backgrounds. Furthermore, this review gathers and discusses the fragmented information described in literature concerning the chemical compoeition and the biological activities of essential oils and different extracts of some Apiaceae species, it illustrates also their potential for the development of pharmaoeutical, cosmetic products and other industrial uses. 1. General introduction Medicinal and aromatic plants have attracted the attention of re searchers worldwide as a major source of raw materials used in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, flavor and perfumery industries. Despite the progress made in synthetic medication research, nowadays, the large numbers of drugs in use are derived from plants by applying modem technologies to traditional practices (Canter et al., 2005; Singh and Singh, 2001). Apiaceae family is one of the most important familles of flowering plants, which consists of 3780 species in 434 genera. lt is distributed throughout the world, mostly in the northem temperate regions and high altitudes in the tropics. The main common features of Apiaceae species are: aromatic herbaceous nature, altemate leaves with sheathing bases, hollow stems, small flowers, inflorescences determined in simple or compound umbel, and indehiscent fruits or seeds with oil ducts (Christensen and Brandt, 2006). This family is well known for its distinctive flavors due to the secretory cavities consisting of schizo genous oil ducts with resin, oil, or mucilage and located in the fruits, stems, leaves and roots (Berenba um, 1990). Apiaceae family pro vides a large number of plants which are used for different purposes including nutrition, medicine, beverages, spices, repellents, staining, cosmetics, fragrances and industrial uses. Ethnomedically, several plants of this family are used as home based remedies to treat various illnesses re lated to digestive, endocrine, reproductive and respiratory systems (Aéimovié and Kostadinovié, 2015). This family is rich in phytochem icals and secondary metabolites which are potential source of drugs Table 1 Ethno-medicinal uses of Apiaceae species and chemical composition of their seeds essential oils.
