This book presents a summation of over a century of natural product research in Australia, concerning plants that have been used customarily by First Scientists. It begins with a look into the history of ethnomedicine across the globe, focusing on the pharmacopeias of the West, the East and Australia. An analysis of the botanical origin, biosynthesis and function of bioactive metabolites gives further background into these potent phytochemicals. This summary concludes with a broad review of the current methodologies involved in modern natural product chemistry, and pharmaceutical drug discovery and development, before considering the future of the field.

The body of the text is dedicated to a systematic presentation of the specialised metabolites that are present in the plant kingdom, with a continual engagement with those sourced from Australian customary medicinal flora. This section is broken into four chapters based on the structural differences present in these molecules: phenolic-type, terpenoid-type, alkaloid-type and a catch-all miscellaneous-type. Each of these chapters presents a tabulated breakdown of the presence of any of the 133 natural product infraclasses across 266 native plant genera reported in the literature, all of which is available on the associated website (www.cmfoa.info). A conclusion offers grounded speculation on where the field is heading.