**1.7 Factors influencing the cultivation of medicinal plants**

Some factors influence the growth of plants (medicinal plants), which may affect many features and the quality of these plants. These factors include temperature, light, altitude, atmospheric humidity, soil, and rainfall:


mainly associated with plants that produce glycoside and alkaloids [91]. High production and labour costs limit the commercial use of micropropagation [92].

#### **1.8 Limitations of medicinal plant cultivation**

There are shortcomings in medicinal plants' applications due to their exceptional qualities in the class of plants, and the products from these medicinal plants are essential sources for improving and maintaining human health [93]. Medicinal plant cultivation has been abortive due to the complexity of germination and environmental factors [38].

It can be clearly stated that the information about the use of medicinal plants is enormous, and in some circumstances, these natural resources are incorporated as the only form of preventing and curing diseases [94]. Anxiety around the introduction of medicinal plants in health systems is about how people utilise these products and how they will be recommended and presented to the population. Since specific consumers who may have some empirical knowledge about the use of certain medicinal plants may fall short of information concerning the actual toxicity of several species, a large number of the population still think that plants cannot damage their health. However, not all the users of these plants have this ideology about these natural resources.

What is more, is the fact that medicinal plants have a variety of species that are known by the same name and when misused, can lead to allergy and stimulation of medical conditions. There is inadequate knowledge of how the preparation and contraindications of the plants, lack of knowledge by health professionals regarding the side effects after consumption, difficulty regarding correct usage of these natural resources, and unreliable information about these plants, which leads to difficulty disseminating this to people. Complementary practices in administering these natural resources to patients to treat specific ailments are abandoned [95].

The storability of medicinal plants plays a role in the ineffective use of the products since many biochemical differences can occur within the natural resources leading to changes in bioactivity [96].
