Phenolic content and profiles of selected wild fruits of Zimbabwe: Ximenia caffra, Artobotrys brachypetalus and Syzygium cordatum

Summary The phenolic compound content and profiles of three wild fruits found in Zimbabwe were tentatively identified using the traditional colorimetric methods and high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The fruits assayed were: Ximenia caffra, Artobotrys brachypetalus and Syzygium cordatum. Ximenia caffra fruit peels contained the highest amounts of total phenolics amounting to 1205 μg g−1 in fresh weight, flavonols amounting to 27 μg g−1 and phenolic acids on HPLC tentative identification showed higher concentrations compared with the profiles of the other fruits. Syzygium cordatum fruit peels contained the least amounts of phenolics amounting to 20 μg g−1, flavonols amounting to 8 μg g−1 and phenolic acids’ HPLC profiles showed low concentrations. Comparing the peels and pulps of all the fruits, we detected more total phenolics in the peels of X. caffra as high as 1205 μg g−1 and the pulps had 228 μg g−1, more flavonols and phenolic acids while the peels of S. cordatum fruits contained the least with a total phenolic acid content of 20 μg g−1, and had more flavonols in the pulps than the peels, 11 μg g−1 and 8 μg g−1, respectively. Ximenia caffra contained 1.2% and about 1% dry weight condensed tannins in peels and pulps, respectively. In S. cordatum we detected 0.2% and 0.3% dry weight condensed tannins in the peels and pulps, respectively.