Phytochemicals and Their Bioactivity from Plants of Dryopteridaceae Family

The division of the plant kingdom pteridophytes is the first vascular plant that appeared 440 million years ago during the Silurian Period. Pteridophytes are distributed across the world, and there are around 14,000 species in total. The Ancient Traditional Indian Medicine System has adopted lower medicinal plants as an effective curing strategy to treat a number of pathogenic attacks causing disease in humans. Because there were no advanced medical facilities at the time, indigenous traditional gurus used to cure disease by using bark, fruit, flowers, roots, or the entire plant to heal unhealthiness. The group pteridophytes possess an extremely significant family called “Dryopteridaceae.” This family, despite holding bioactive potential, is ignored and less documented as a resource for therapy. Less exploration of this family kept the therapeutic wealth wrapped for a long time. Thorough and extensive attention to this group by modern scientists has unveiled the essence and medicinal value of these plants due to the presence of phytochemicals. The phytochemicals like saponin, glycosides, steroids, essential oils, and others have increased the potential of the plants belonging to the group as medicinally significant. This chapter focuses on bringing out the bioactive phytochemicals of the family Dryopteridaceae and gives perspective for considering a potential family of the division pteridophytes as a future drug lead in the process of drug development.