Abstract

COMPARATIVE PHYTOCHEMICAL STUDY OF STEM BARK VERSUS SMALL BRANCHES OF BOMBAX CEIBA LINN USING HPTLC- UV DETECTION METHOD

S. C. Verma*, S. Subhani, E. Vashishth, R. Singh, P. Pant, M. M. Padhi and A. Kumar

Abstract

Bombax ceiba is commonly known as silk cotton tree and semal which belongs to family Bombacaceae. B. ceiba is an important medicinal plant of tropical and subtropical India. The plant name Bombax ceiba is derived from Greek word “Bombax” meaning silkworm and the word “ceiba” is the South American vernacular name for silk cotton tree. Its medicinal usage has been reported in the traditional systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani. It has wide range of medicinal and pharmacological application. Our results revealed that the chromatographic fingerprint combined with similarity measurement could efficiently identify and distinguish B. ceiba stem bark and small branches. The phytochemical fingerprint profiling of stem bark and small branches of B. ceiba were found similar as an official part of B. ceiba plant i.e. stem bark, therefore small branches may be used in place of stem bark and vice-versa after comparison and confirmation of same pharmacological activities. The method can also be used for identification of different B. ceiba species and adulterants.

Keywords: Bombax ceiba L., HPTLC–UV detection, phytochemical fingerprint profiling analysis.