The use of phytochemical composition of fifty (50) selected plants found in the university botanic garden, Maseno, Kenya to show
View/ Open
Date
2015-08-02Author
Omondi, Seline
Onyango, J.C.
Okello, Victor Samuel
Jeruto, Pascaline
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Qualitative phytochemical analysis of 50 plants, five each from 10 selected families is presented. The ten
plant families were selected based on their high plant frequency of occurrence within the botanic garden. The
powdered crude samples of the leaves of the fifty plants were subjected to phytochemical analysis using
standard experimental procedures. The ethanoic leaf extracts from the plants were tested for the presence of
six phytochemicals. From the research, it is evident that saponins are the most abundant phytochemicals
among the plants leaf extracts. They account for 32.43 %, followed by alkaloids (27.03 %) then flavanoids
(14.86 %), steroids (12 .16%), terpenes (10.81%) and anthraquinones (2.70 %) respectively. PRM3 statistical
programmes was used to analyse the phytochemical data, and ANOVA at P≤0.05 revealed that plant families
Poaceae, Solanaceae and Rutaceae all have phytochemical composition mean of 60.0, indicating that the
families are closely related. Apocynaceae, Asteraceae and Malvaceae families had phytochemical
composition mean of 53.5, 50.3 and 50.2 respectively.The three means do not significantly differ, indicating
the three families are related. Lamiaceae, Fabaceae and Acanthaceae had phytochemical composition mean of
46.8, 43.5 and 40.2 respectively. The means of these three plant families do not significantly differ, indicating
that the three plant families are also related. The Araceae family had a mean of 30.7 which differs from all the
other means, indicating that this family, based on its phytochemical composition, is not closely related to any
of the nine plant families.
Collections
The following license files are associated with this item: