Editorial

I am pleased to bring you volume 5, issue 2 of Pharmacognosy Communications. In this issue we present a review of traditional ethnopharmacological knowledge in Malaysia and India. This review presents a survey of the common medicinal plants used in these 2 countries and outlines their known therapeutic uses. The common and/ or local names for each species are listed and the plant part used and method of preparation are explained. This manuscript describes a study which will be presented at the 15t h International Congress of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology (ISE) that will be held in Petra, Jordan on May 5-8, 2015. Pharmacognosy Communications is proud to be the journal sponsor for this event. Over the next few issues, we will be publishing more ISE papers along with our regular submissions. In this issue, we also present original research reports examining the pharmacognosy of several important medicinal plants including a survey of Australian culinary herbs for inhibitory activity against microbial triggers of rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, as well as a study reporting on the ability of Terminalia ferdinandiana (Kakadu plum) to block multiple sclerosis disease etiology and an examination of the phytochemistry of the active extracts. A further study describing the antiparasitic activity of gallic acid, and 2 studies examine the effects of single and combinational herbal therapies on different parameters of hyperglycemic rats are also presented.