摘要：Plants produce several chemically diverse bioactive substances that may influence the growth and development of other organisms when released into the environment in a phenomenon called allelopathy. Several of these allelopathic species also have reported medicinal properties. In this study, the potential allelopathic effects of more than a hundred medicinal plants from Cambodia were tested using the dish pack method. The dish pack bioassay method specifically targets volatile allelochemicals. Twenty-five species were found to have significant inhibitory effects on lettuce radicle growth. Eleven different plant families, including Iridaceae (2), Apocynaceae (2), Poaceae (2), Sapindaceae, Araceae, Combretaceae, Orchidaceae, Clusiaceae, Zingiberaceae, Rutaceae and Asparagaceae had the plant species with high inhibitory effects. <i>Allophyllus serrulatus</i> had the highest growth inhibitory effect on lettuce radicles more than 60%, followed by <i>Alocasia macrorrhiza, Iris pallida</i>, <i>Terminalia triptera</i>, <i>Wrightia tomentosa</i>, <i>Cymbidium aloifolium</i>, <i>Garcinia villersiana</i> and <i>Kaempferia parviflora</i>. The candidate species were subjected to further studies to identify the volatile allelochemicals in the volatile constituents.
