Preliminary comparative phytochemical screening of root extracts of Diospyrus ferrea (Wild.) Bakh and Aerva lanata (L.) Juss. Ex Schultes

Phytochemical screening is one of the necessary steps to find out the chemical constituents which lead the isolation of compounds. Diospyrus ferrea (Willd.) Bakh is a medicinally important small bonsai tree, belongs to the family Ebenaceae. The root has been used for the treatment of various ailments like dyspepsia and inflammation. Aerva lanata (Amaranthaceae) is erect or prostrate herb, the whole herb is medicinal though the roots are often preferred. It is used in diabetes lithiasis, headache and strangury. To identify and understand the bioactive chemical compounds dry root powders were subjected to different solvents such as hexane chloroform, methanol, ethanol and water sequentially in a soxhlet apparatus. Although, all the five extract exhibited promising phytochemicals, yet maximum phytochemicals was observed in ethanol extract. The hexane and chloroform extract gave positive result for only few secondary metabolites which confirms the less phytoconstituents. The aqueous extract gave positive result for carbohydratre, phytosterol and saponin. The methanol root extract was found to be positive for some of the secondary metabolite such as alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids, quinones, tannins, phlobatanins, and reducing sugars. The ethanol root extract of the plant showed the presence of polar and non polar phytoconstituents, hence considered to be suitable solvent for further pharmacological investigation. The current study was carried out to provide requisite phytochemical detail about the root in Diospyrus and Aerva in different type of solvents.

Author(s): R. Vijayalakshmi* and R. Ravindhran

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