ABSTRACT

Jordan contains approximately 2,500 species of plants distributed throughout the Kingdom, from these species there are 485 species belonging to 99 different families are categorized as medicinal plants. Many species of plants, including those of medicinal value, are becoming threatened, endangered, rare, nearly extinct, or extinct because of misguided human activities. The primary causes for loss of medicinal plant diversity are destruction and overcollection of medicinal plants in their natural habitats. As a golden mine of bioactive molecules, endophytic fungi have been attracted the attention of researchers worldwide over the past few years because their presence benefits the host plant, and they are a source of secondary metabolites of potential interest. There are an increasing number of reports on their identification and on the production of secondary metabolites. In Jordan, endophytic fungal research is completely overlooked and until now no solid study on endophytic fungi of medicinal plants in the country has been carried by any Jordanian researchers. This review aims to shed the light on the importance of endophytic fungi, their useful products and application and how we can use them as a news strategy to conserve medicinal plants in Jordan with special reference to Asteraceae and Lamiaceae.