Antifungal activity of extracts from medicinal plants used by First Nations Peoples of eastern Canada

From literature describing medicinal usage of plants by First Nations Peoples in eastern Canada, 18 eastern Canadian plants were selected and tested for their antifungal activities. Eight randomly selected tropical plants were also tested for comparative purposes. Four groups of plants were obtained: popular antimicrobial-remedy (n=6), popular non-antimicrobial-remedy (n=6), random temperate (n=6) and random tropical (n=8). Extracts from these plants were tested in disk assays as growth inhibitors of six fungi known to be opportunistic human pathogens (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Cryptococcus neoformans, Candida albicans, Aspergillus fumigatus, Microsporum gypseum and Trichophyton mentagrophytes). Of the four plant groups tested, extracts from the popular antimicrobial-remedy group were significantly more effective at inhibiting fungal growth based on both overall antifungal activity and number of fungal species inhibited.