 Medicinal plants have been used as a resource for food and medicine since the beginning of human societies, with knowledge about their uses gradually developing through trial and error and cultural transmission. However, ensuring the safety, quality, and effectiveness of these resources has recently become a key issue in industrialized and developing countries, requiring standardization and evaluation of active plant-derived compounds to treat human diseases in the future. This review investigates and describes the historical process of using medicinal plants, focusing on recent challenges in quality evaluation, including authenticity, efficacy, toxicity, and consistency. This article was authored by Fatemay Jamshidi-Kia, Zara Loragwani, and Hosein Aminikoi.