To ensure reproducible quality of herbal products, proper control of raw material is important. The first step towards ensuring quality of starting material is pharmacognostic standardization. Thus, in recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the standardization of selected medicinal plants of potential therapeutic significance. Careya arborea Roxb. is one of the important medicinal plants belonging to family Lecythidaceae. The present work has been designed to evaluate the pharmacognostic and phytochemical parameters of the stem bark of Careya arborea Roxb for the standardization. Various standardization parameters like macroscopic characters, microscopic evaluation, fluorescence analysis, histochemical study, physicochemical evaluations, preliminary phytochemical screening were carried out according to Ayurvedic Pharmacopeia of India (API) and WHO guidelines and the qualitative parameters were reported. HPTLC fingerprint profile was also evaluated by standard method. Microscopy of the bark showed the presence of different type of calcium oxalate crystals, stone cells, sclerids and lignified fibres. Total ash value, acid soluble ash, water soluble ash, alcohol soluble extract, water soluble extract, loss on drying and swelling index were found to be 12.03 ± 0.25, 0.8 ± 0.002, 8.43 ± 0.012, 23.88 ± 0.01,21.96 ± 0.02,7.82 ± 1.56,3.33 ± 0.47 respectively. Phytochemical analysis of different extracts showed the presence of aleurone grains, carbohydrates, fats and fixed oils, mucilage, starch, alkaloids, glycosides, saponins, anthraquinones, essential oils, tannins, steroids, triterpenoids and flavonoids. These studies suggested that the observed pharmacognostic, physicochemical and phytochemical parameters provide referential information for correct identification, authentication of the plant material, formulation development.
Gupta et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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