The potential of new natural products as an important source for the exploration and development of new drugs and crop protection products is a long way from being exhausted. The statistical analysis of the structures of the natural and synthetically derived compounds has shown conspicuous variations in structural types in the natural products derived from different natural sources, which can be utilized in the search for individual active substances. The occasionally voiced prepossession that natural products have already been sufficiently examined and therefore no more innovations are to be expected can definitely be rejected.