Pharmacological screening of nymphaea species linn. (Nymphaeaceae)

The herbal medicines are the major remedy in traditional medicinal system and are being used in medicinal practices for thousands of years. They have made a great contribution in maintaining human health. The practice continues even today because of its biomedicinal benefits in many parts of the world. There is a phenomenal increase in the demand for the herbal medicines especially for those, which have been scientifically validated. These drugs are invariably single plant extracts or fractions thereof, which have been carefully standardized and their efficacy and safety for a suggested application, well demonstrated. In the present study an attempt has been made to standardize two flowers of same families traditionally used for medicine plants by carrying out their pharmacognostical, phytochemical and pharmacological studies as per the standard procedures. The evaluation of potent flower extracts for their phytochemical, In-vitro and In-vivo antioxidant, antidiabetic and anticancer properties were carried out. Isolation of the phyto-constituents from the potent flower extracts using column chromatography and their characterization was also carried out. The plant materials were collected from in and around Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts lakes, Tamilnadu, India and authenticated. The fresh flower materials were collected and used for morphological identification and microscopical studies. The dried flower materials were coarsely powdered and used for extraction with pet-ether, chloroform, ethylacetate and hydroalcoholic extracts using hot continuous soxhlet apparatus individually. All the extracts were concentrated to dryness under reduced pressure and controlled temperature (40-50ºC). Pharmacognostical evaluation was carried out in order to establish the identity and to standardize the flowers. Morphological and microscopical characters, determination of various Physicochemical parameters like loss on drying, ash values like total ash, acid insoluble ash, sulphated ash and water soluble ash, extractive ...