Category B - Organisms

Indexing Principles

Plants [B01.650]

In most cases plants can be found in MeSH under both their scientific name and common name. Be careful when encountering a common name for a plant in the literature. Many very different plants have similar common names. Check the text and the annotations to be sure the right plant term is indexed. For example, the annotation at CUPRESSUS restricts the see reference CYPRESS to the genus CUPRESSUS. Other cypress terms such as BALD CYPRESS and CYPRESS, YELLOW are see references to other terms.

There are several plant parts in MeSH such as PLANT LEAVES and FLOWERS. Several pre-coordinated plant terms can be found in other trees, such as GENES, PLANT; PLANT PROTEINS; and DNA, PLANT. These should be used with specific plants when needed.

Therapy using plants or preparations from plants is indexed with the term PHYTOTHERAPY in category E. In general index a disease treated with a plant or a plant preparation in the following way:

Disease / *drug ther (IM)
PHYTOTHERAPY (IM)
Specific Plant (IM)
PLANT PREPARATIONS or specifics / ther use (IM or NIM)