PHARMACOGNOSTICAL PHYTOCHEMICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL SCREENING OF ROOT OF Glycosmis pentaphylla Retz DC

Abstract

Nature always stands as a golden mark to exemplify the outstanding phenomenon of symbiosis Herbal medicine is the oldest form of healthcare known to mankind Primitive man observed and appreciated the great diversity of plants available to him Current estimates of the number of species of flowering plants range between 200000 and 250000 in 300 families and 10500 genera Evans 2005 More than 60 percentage of approved and pre new drug application NDA candidates are either natural products or related to them not including biologicals such as vaccines and monoclonal antibodies Snader KM et al1997 An amazing variety and number of products have been found in nature The total number of natural products produced by plants has been estimated to be over 500000 One hundred sixty thousand natural products have been identified a value growing by 10000 per year Dictionary of Natural Products 2001 About 100000 secondary metabolites of molecular weight less than 2500 have been characterized half from microbes and the other half from plants Despite a rapidly expanding literature on phytochemistry only a small percentage of the total species has been examined chemically and there is a large field for future research newline