Pharmacognostic and preliminary phytochemical investigation of Eulophia herbacea Lindl. Tubers (Orchidaceae)

Eulophia herbacea Lindl (Orchidaceae) is an important traditional medicinal plant and widely used in treatment of variety of disease by tribes. Plant is unexplored scientifically yet for their identification and use. Therefore, the current study was carried out to perform detailed pharmacognostical and phytochemical analysis of E. herbacea. Systematic pharmacognostic evaluation of tubers of E. herbacea has been carried out with respect to macroscopy, microscopy, WHO recommended physico-chemical parameters, florescence analysis of powder and estimation of different chemical standards. HPTLC fingerprinting of amino acid was also developed. Tubers are fibrous, woody and perennial with numerous rootlets. Microscopic study shows the presence of cork, cortex, parenchymatus ground tissue, fibro vascular bundles and calcium oxalate crystals. Qualitative phytochemical test revealed the presence of acidic compounds, carbohydrates, amino acids, mucilage, tannins, steroids and triterpenoid. Morphological, histological and physico-chemical parameters studied in this paper may be proposed to establish the authenticity of plant Eulophia herbacea, which can probably, helps to differentiate the crude drug from its other species with respect to quality, purity and identification.