Medicinal sedum species as sources of bioactive natural products: phytochemical diversity, pharmacological evidence, and translational prospects.

The genus Sedum (Crassulaceae), together with several taxa historically treated under Sedum, has long been used in traditional medicine and is increasingly investigated as a source of bioactive natural products. Yet its medicinal potential remains difficult to evaluate because the literature is fragmented by taxonomic revisions, species-specific reports, incomplete chemical standardisation, and heterogeneous bioassays. This review critically synthesises evidence published from 1950 to May 2026 on medicinally relevant Sedum taxa, integrating traditional-use records, accepted nomenclature, phytochemical diversity, analytical characterisation, pharmacological activity, and translational limitations. Searches of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and CNKI were combined with taxonomic verification using Plants of the World Online. Reported constituents include flavonoids, megastigmanes, non-flavonoid phenolics, sterols, triterpenoids, nitrogen-containing compounds, and other metabolites. Flavonol glycosides dominate the flavonoid profile, whereas gallotannins, megastigmane glycosides, δ-amyrone, tricin derivatives, and pectic polysaccharides emerge as recurrent chemical or bioactivity-linked markers. Pharmacological evidence most consistently supports anticancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antimicrobial activities. However, most findings remain preclinical and are limited by inadequate botanical authentication, weak extract standardisation, incomplete quantitative fingerprints, non-comparable assays, sparse pharmacokinetic data, limited toxicity assessment, and absence of clinical validation. Future research should move from broad activity screening toward authenticated taxa, chemically defined preparations, mechanism-validated targets, and safety-informed translational development.