Studies on Ipomoea Cairica (L.) Sweet - A Promising Ethnomedicinally Important Plant

Abstract

The drug evaluation and bioassay of traditional herbs of various herbal systems is now getting more momentum throughout the world. It is the high time now to evaluate scientifically the information stored in different herbal medicine systems of the world in terms of their pharmacognostic, phytochemical and pharmacological characterization. So knowledge of pharmacognosy of individual medicinal plant is very important aspect for herbal based drug discovery. Therefore in this study, an attempt has been made to evaluate such ethnomedicinally important plant, pharmacognostically along with antimicrobial and phytochemical analyses which are still unexplored. In this study different pharmacognostical parameters of Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet of Convolvulaceae, an ethno botanically important medicinal plant have been investigated. The plant is commonly known as ‘Railway creeper’ or Morning glory. The plants are medicinally used as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and highly potent against malaria. Palisade ratio is 6. Leaves are amphistomatic.  Stomatal index is 11. Trichomes show an assortment of both nonglandular, multicellular and glandular, multicellular, sessile types. These two types are recorded on both surfaces. Vessel elements are moderately long with simple and transverse or obliquely placed perforation plates. Pits are simple and tails are frequently present with some vessel elements. In the leaf extract, the detected phytochemical groups are alkaloids, flavonoids, steroids and triterpenoids, reducing sugars, tannins, gums and saponins, etc. In the stem extract flavonoids, steroids and triterpenoids, reducing sugars, tannins and saponins are present. Different histochemical localizations have been identified in the stem which contain some specific phytochemical groups like lignins, celluloses, suberins, proteins and alkaloids. Ash value and moisture content of the leaf are 35.88 % and 89.25 % respectively. The highest inhibition zone was found against Salmonella typhi ATCC 19430 and Klebsiella aerogenes W70 (inhibition zone, 15 mm) in the methanolic extract. Ethyl acetate extract showed the maximum inhibition on Pseudomonas aeruginosa NCTC10662 (inhibition zone, 19 mm). This study will be very helpful to herbalists and pharmacologists for proper evaluation and validation of folk drug.