Data on medicinal plants used to treat respiratory infections and related symptoms in South Africa

We provide details of 306 plant species used to treat and manage respiratory infections and related symptoms in South Africa. About a third of the documented species belong to four plant families, namely the Asteraceae (15.7%), Fabaceae (6.1%), Lamiaceae (5.6%) and Amaryllidaceae (4.6%). An overwhelming majority of documented species are used as medicine to treat tuberculosis (40.2%), cough (36.6%), fever (29.1%), chest complaints (28.8%) and cold (23.2%). The potentially bioactive phytochemical compounds and associated pharmacological properties of the documented plant species are also provided. This data demonstrated strong correlation between phytochemistry, pharmacological properties and medicinal uses of more than three quarters (80.1%) of the documented species used against respiratory infections and related symptoms. Data of this nature can be used to identify research gaps on ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry and pharmacological properties of plant species used as herbal medicines.