Table 2.

Summary of ethnobotanical uses versus measured biological activities of isolated secondary metabolites from Thymelaeaceae and Tribulaceae

Plant family	Plant name (country)	Use in traditional medicine	Part of plant studied	Isolated principle	Measured activity	Author and reference
Thymelaeaceae	Thymelaea hirsuta (Egypt)	Used traditionally as an antiseptic and anti-inflammatory agent and for the treatment of hypertension by external application [58]. Generally, Thymelaea species are used for the treatment of uterine cancer, prostate inflammation and other related infirmities	Leaves and roots	87	Known cancer chemopreventive agent and antiproliferative agent	Rizk and Rimpler [55]; Abou-Karam et al. [56]
			Leaves and twigs	88–92	Not tested	Brooks et al. [57]
			Aerial parts	93–94	Inhibition of melanogenesis in B16 murine melanoma cells	Miyamae et al. [58]
			Leaves	95	Not tested	Nawwar et al. [51]
	Thymelaea lythroides (Morocco)	Used to treat a wide range of diseases, including; prostate inflammation, diabetes, rheumatism, otitis and cancer of the uterus	Aerial parts	96–103	Not tested	Kabbaj et al. [59]
Tribulaceae	Tribulus pentandrus (Egypt)	Plants from this genus have diverse uses, e.g. T. terrestris is used increase appetite, increase sexual desire in humans, regulate heart rate, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, treatment of prostatic hyperplasia, reducing the symptoms and prostate volume, etc [75]	Aerial parts	114–120	Compound 114 showed antimicrobial activities, but compounds 115–120 were not tested	Mahalel [72]; Hamed et al. [73]