**4. Conclusions**

The use of plants as a source of research in the search for active compounds for medicine has been proven to have a significant scientific output. An analysis of the scientific literature indexed in the Scopus database concerning medicinal plants clearly shows that in the last 20 years, progress has been rapid, with a peak in 2010. From this year onwards, publications have stabilized at just over 5000 per year.

The research of products derived from the plants shows great collaboration between the countries of the first world and the countries with a traditional use of these plants from Asia, Africa or Latin America, all this to produce new medicines with scientific tests of safety and effectiveness. Within the analysis of the different clusters of collaboration between countries, there are four from Asia, led by China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan; two from Africa, led by South Africa and Cameroon, and then one from Latin America, led by Brazil and another from North America, led by the USA. It has been proven that there is no cluster of European countries, but that they generally collaborate with countries with which they have a commercial relationship. The research of medicinal plants in Africa is greatly underdeveloped, in contrast with China and India. In fact, there is no African country among the countries that published the most in this field. Among the first 25 institutions there is only one that belongs to the African continent. From this top 25, 13 are from China (including the first 7), 3 from Brazil, 2 from South Korea, and 1 of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Mexico, Cameroon, France, and Malaysia.

The most widely used search terms by the main institutions researching in this field are Unclassified Drug, Plant Extract, and Controlled Study. From the study of the keywords in the period from 2009 to 2014, seven clusters have been found, those dedicated to: Traditional medicine, Drug determination, Animals-in vivo study, Unclassified drug, Drug efficacy, Effect of extraction solvent, and Malaria. Subsequently, from the period 2015 to 2019, the clusters are reduced to five, and those focused on: Unclassified drug, Traditional medicine, Cancer, In vivo study—antidiabetic activity, and Animals—anti-inflammatory activity.

This is proven by the fact that of the total number of publications analyzed, more than 100,000, only 11% are in the Agricultural and Biological Sciences category, while more than 50% are grouped in the Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics category and Medicine. This study highlights the scarce research from the agronomic perspective regarding domestication, production or genetic or biotechnological research on breeding of medicinal plants.

**Author Contributions:** E.S.-M., J.A.G.-C. and F.M.-A. conceived the research, designed the search, and wrote the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors would like to thank to the CIAIMBITAL (University of Almeria, CeiA3) for its support.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
