[3] Itty Achuthan also disclosed the medicinal and other uses of the plants which was known to him from his own experience as a herbal physician and from palm-leaf manuscripts carried by his family as.

[5][6] In the research paper published in the journal Global Histories, titled 'Plants, Power and Knowledge: An Exploration of the Imperial Networks and the Circuits of Botanical Knowledge and Medical Systems on the Western Coast of India Against the Backdrop of European Expansionism', Malavika Binny states that Kerala had medical traditions that existed even prior to Ayurvedic tradition.

It is believed to be one of the earliest printed works on the flora of Asia and the tropics, after Garcia de Orta's "Colóquios dos simples e drogas he cousas medicinais da Índia" (Goa, 1563) and the most comprehensive among them.

A book of its size, on which such care was expended, must have consumed a fortune before its publication, and confers honour, both on those who compiled it and the place where it was compiled.Several species of plants have their type illustrations in this work.

The work was edited by a team of nearly a hundred including: The ethno-medical information presented in Hortus Malabaricus was culled from palm leaf manuscripts by Itty Achuden, who dictated the material in Malayalam, which was then scrutinized by three Konkani Brahmanas—gymnosophist priest-physicians (referred to in the text as ‘brahmins’) Ranga Bhat,— Vinayaka Pandit and Appu Bhat, followed by a process of thorough verification, discussion with other scholars and general agreement.

[10] Volume 1 of the Hortus Malabaricus contains a testimony by Achudan, dated 20 April 1675, which can be translated as follows: "As intended by the hereditary Malayalam physician born in Kollatt house in Kodakarapalli village of Karappuram and residing therein.

Having come to Cochin fort on the orders of Coomodore Van Rheede and having examined the trees and seed varieties described in this book, the descriptions of and the treatment with each of them known from our books and classified as in the illustrations and notes and explained in detail to Emmanuel Carnerio, the interpreter of the Honourable Company, clearing doubts thus supplied the information as accepted without any doubt by this gentlemen of Malabar".

Many of the descriptions that accompany each plant in Hortus Malabaricus thus remains as cultural storehouse of the incidental sociological situation and social affinities carried by the flora of those times.