QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDIZATION OF AQUEOUS AND ETHANOL EXTRACTS OF CRATEVA ADANSONII DC. STEM BARK

Abstract

Standardization is the process of making something conforms to a standard and it is necessary to establish Quality, Safety and Efficacy of a herbal product. Crateva adansonii DC (Varuna) is an evergreen tree from the Capparidaceae family and the stem bark of this plant is mainly indicated for urinary calculi (mutra ashmari).  This study was designed to determine some selected standardization parameters of the stem barks of this plant. Organoleptic, physical, chemical and biological analyses were conducted. Under physical parameters, the foreign matter content (2%), total ash (1.88%), acid-insoluble ash (1.32%), water-soluble ash (4.45%) and loss on drying (9.66%) were within the standard limits. Water-soluble extractive value (10.5%) was higher than the alcohol-soluble extractive value (1.3%). Swelling index (7ml) shows low mucilage content and foaming index (<1000) shows low saponins content of the bark. Both aqueous and ethanol extracts of the bark were positive for alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, steroids, glycosides and proteins. Only the aqueous extract was positive for saponins while only the ethanol extract was positive for terpenoids. Carbohydrates were not detected in both extracts. R_f values for the TLC of ethanol extract (MeOH: Chloroform 2:8, v/v) were 0.42, 0.73 and for the aqueous extract (Butanol: Dichloro methane: Water 4:1:5 v/v) 0.42, 0.67 and 0.83.