Natural Product Sciences

The Korean Society of Pharmacognosy (한국생약학회)
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Pharmacognostical Evaluation of Gymnema sylvestre R. Br.

  • Agnihotri, Adarsh Kumar (Pharmacognosy & Ethnopharmacology Division, National Botanical Research Institute) ;
  • Khatoon, Sayyada (Pharmacognosy & Ethnopharmacology Division, National Botanical Research Institute) ;
  • Agarwal, Manisha (Pharmacognosy & Ethnopharmacology Division, National Botanical Research Institute) ;
  • Rawat, Ajay Kumar Singh (Pharmacognosy & Ethnopharmacology Division, National Botanical Research Institute) ;
  • Mehrotra, Shanta (Pharmacognosy & Ethnopharmacology Division, National Botanical Research Institute) ;
  • Pushpangadan, Palpu (Pharmacognosy & Ethnopharmacology Division, National Botanical Research Institute)
  • Published : 2004.08.31
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Abstract

In India, Gymnema sylvestre due to the unique property of the plant to antagonize the sweet taste is known as 'Gur-mar'. It has several ethnomedicinal values as various tribals/traditional communities and rural peoples of India find diverse medicinal uses viz. antidiabetic, stomachic, diuretic, and is useful in cough and throat troubles. Besides, it has strong effect on reducing blood sugar. The present communication deals with the detailed pharmacognostical evaluation of the aerial parts of G. sylvestre collected from three places of the country-Varanasi (U.P), Panchmarhi (M.P), Salem (Tami Nadu) and commercial sample procured from local market. The botanical and physico-chemical parameters of all the samples were quite similar though little variations were observed in foaming index, alcohol and water soluble extractives of local sample. The microscopic characteristics of the drug are horse shoe shaped petiole with 3 amphicribal vascular bundles, sieve tubes well developed; anomocytic stomata only on the abaxial surface of the leaf, the fan shaped amphicribal vascular bundle, presence of intraxylary phloem. The TLC fingerprint profile of all the samples was more or less similar only the quantity of some of the compounds varied.

Keywords

References

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