Introduction

Vernonia cinerea Less. known as purple fleabane in English, Sahadevi in Sanskrit, Garita kammi in Telugu and Sahadevi or Sadodi in local language. The plant is distributed throughout India as a weed on road sides and open places. The plant is branched herb, erect or decumbent growing up to 12-75 cms height, with cylindrical, glabrous, slightly branched stem of

10-17 cms long, 1-8 mm thick. The leaves are simple, alternate, lanceolate, 2.5 cms long and 1.8-3.6 cms broad. The flowers are pinkish violet, in small heads. Fruits are oblong achenes slightly narrowed at the base, clothed with appressed white hairs. Roots are 5-12 cms long, 1-7mm thick, oblique and gradually tapering, bearing few root lets, external surface dirty brown, fracture short. The roots are useful in Diarrhoea, Abdominal pain, Cough, Renal and Vesical calculi. Roots are said to be beneficial in vitiated conditions of Vata, Leucoderma, Inflammation and Intermittent fever.

Literature survey on Vernonia cinerea Less. suggest various therapeutic use of plant reported such as anti-inflammatory(E.O.Iwalwa et.al, 2003), anti-pyretic (Malaya Gupta et.al., 2003), Hyppoglycemic activity(G.Y.Sy  et.al., 2005), fungistatic activity (G.N. Krishna et.al.,  2003) and Antidiuretic activity ( J.O. Adeboye et.al., 1997)

Materials And Methods

The roots of Vernonia  cinerea Less. collected in the month of November from agricultural land in Chillargi, Bidar, Karnataka, India. The plant was authenticated by Prof. B.S.Sajjan, Head, Dept of Botany B.V.B.College , Bidar, Karnataka. A T S of boiled root in Chloral Hydrate was prepared and mounted on glass slide for identification of cellular structures. Powder of dried root was used for the observation of the powder microscopic characters, Ash value, Extractive values, Phytochemical  constituents.

Results and Discussion

Transverse section of root (Fig 1)

Mature root shows 4-5 layered cork, consisting of tabular, tangentially elongated, thick walled cells filled with reddish brown contents;  secondary cortex consists of white zone of thin walled  paranchymatous cells having a few resin ducts, secondary phloem, a narrow zone composed of sieve elements and phloem parenchyma, transversed by phloem rays, xylem well developed, composed of vessels, tricheids, fibers and xylem parenchyma, transverse by 1-5 seriate xylem rays.

Figure 1 T. S. of root of  V cinerea.   Click here to View figure

Powder microscopy of root: (fig 2)

4-5 layers of cork cells seen in surface view

Xylem vessels are solitary or 2-4 in groups with reticulate thickening

Fibers are aseptate and pointed

Wood elements are well developed wide vessels with reticulate thickenings

Figure 2: Powder characters  of  V cinerea root.   Click here to View figure

Behavior of powder with reagents

Behavior of root powder with different reagents was studied to detect the presence of phyto constituents with colour changes under day light by reported method (K. Mukharjee, 2002). The results are shown in table I

Table 1: Behavior of  root powder of  V. cinerea with reagents.

Physico-chemical parameters

The various physico-chemical parameters like Total ash, Acid insoluble ash, Watersoluble ash, Extractive values and loss on drying values of the root powder were done as per IP 2007 and results are tabulated in table II

Table 2: Physico-chemical constants of V. cinerea root .

Preliminary Phytochemical screening

Preliminary Phytochemical screening was carried out by using standard procedure described by Kokate(1986) and Harborne (1998) and results are given in table III

Table 3: Preliminary phytochemical screening of   V. cinerea root.

Where:   + = Present,       – = Absent

Conclusion

As there is no pharmacognostical work on record of this traditionally much valued drug, the present work was taken up with a view to lay down standard, which could be useful to detect the authenticity of this medicinally used plant. Macro and microscopical and proximate analysis standards discussed here can be considered as identifying parameters to authenticate the drug.

Acknowledgements

The authors are  thankful to Dr K.S.Rao Principal RRK’s College of Pharmacy Bidar, Karnataka for providing the facilities to carry out the work and Dr M. H. Patil Head, dept of Pharmacognosy, Karnataka college of pharmacy, Bidar, for his valuable suggestions and guidance.

The authors are also thankful to prof B.S. Sajjan Head, Dept of Botany, B.V.B. College Bidar for identification and authentification of the plant.

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