The Ayurvedic materia medica is based upto 500 to 600 plant drugs. The number of these drugs are dwindling rapidly due to several natural and man made factors with the result the physicians are uanble to get the required drug or the required quantity of the drug. This ultimately results in the gradual death of the entire system. In order to overcome this alarming problem and to provide a permanent solution, various aspects like new or alternate sources for the drugs, exploitation of crude drug market sources, ethnobotanical data and cultivation and germ plasm are discussed in detail.
