Abstract
Plants are the oldest source of pharmaceutically active compounds, and have provided humankind with many medically useful compounds for centuries ( Cordell, 1981). Plants produce a diverse array of secondary metabolites, many of which have antimicrobial activity. Some of these compounds are constitutive, existing in healthy plants in their biological active form. Others, occur as inactive precursors ( Anesini & Perez., 1993). Hence screening of antimicrobial plants for new agents poses an enormous challenge and are important especially with emergence of drug resistant disease strains.