Review of cultivated and spontaneous Brassicaceae species for use as medicinal in NE part of Romania

In last decades, when many diseases were associated to lifestyle, especially to food quality, researcher attention was guided to find alternative sources in nature. Nowadays, a large range of crops have been identified to play an important role in different industries as follows: food, pharmaceutics, cosmetics, medicinal, etc. Species from Brassicaceae family are considered to be valuable resources thanks to their nutritional quality. The chemical content of Brassicaceae species allows usage of entire plants or different organs, as raw material for multiple purposes. The aim of this paper was to present a part of Romanian Brassicaceae genetic resources in order to highlight the enormous potential of species to be used as medicinal. The paper presents a list of spontaneous and cultivated Brassicaceae in North East region of Romania, used as medicinal, and provides information about their traditional medicinal use. A number of 21 spontaneous Brassicaceae were identified in wild flora, and they are currently used as medicinal. In the investigated region, Brassicaceae species are cultivated mainly for their use as vegetables and spices. Species as Brassica nigra, Lepidium sativum, Nasturtium officinale, Raphanus sativus var. niger and Sinapis alba L. are also cultivated for their medicinal use. For these species we also presented information related to their yield potential.