Excipients may be defined as ‘an inert material used in formulation other than medicament for giving desired characteristics to the pharmaceutical formulation. The specific application of various natural polymers used in Pharmaceutical formulations include their use in the processing of the dosage forms, to enhance bioavailability, stability, protection, patient acceptance and compliance, helps in identification of product, provides more safety, efficacy and other characteristics during administration of dosage form. Today we have a wide variety of gums and mucilages isolated from natural source that are used as pharmaceutical excipients, starch, agar, alginates, acacia, pectin, and gelatin are some of them. These plant based excipients are generally employed in the pharmaceutical formulations as diluents, disintegrating agent, binders matrix forming agents, bases in suppository, thickening agents in oral liquids, and gelling agent in gel formulation. These plant based gums and mucilage find wide Pharmaceutical applications because of the certain specific advantages associated with them which includes, biocompatible and bio-acceptable, economic, easily available, devoid of toxicity, soothing action, non-irritant nature, ecofriendly, better patience acceptability, as well as public acceptance. Various types of gums and mucilage that are used in pharmaceutical formulations are obtained from woody and non woody plants part such as seed, sap, root, bark, fruit leaves and rhizomes. Major application of gum is a tablet binding agent. The Presented article give a brief review of applications of gums and mucilage in pharmaceutical dosage forms, their classification, general method of isolation and characterization and some of recently investigated natural gums as matrix forming agents in the development of sustained released tablets.