ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A Comparative Assessment on Physicochemical Properties of Senna auriculata Leaves and Flowers of the Natural and Polluted Sources

Background: The standardization of herbal medicines is an essential step in evaluating the quality of medicines based on drug concentration, physical and chemical standards. Due to the fact that the plant of Senna auriculata L. has a great medicinal potential with information about the compounds present in the various parts of the plant, it was considered important to study the preliminary physicochemical properties.

Results: Samples A & B were collected from natural habitats and Samples C & D were collected from polluted areas. Physicochemical properties of powdered plant material of S. auriculata include extractive value, ash value, loss on drying, and fluorescence behaviour were determined as per standard methods. The water-soluble extractive value in the leaves and flowers of samples A and B was greater than samples C and D. In terms of alcohol soluble extractive value, both samples A and B had a high percentage yield in their leaves and flowers, whereas samples C and D had a somewhat lower percentage yield. The leaves and flowers of samples A and B had lower moisture content percentages, whereas samples C and D had somewhat higher moisture content percentages.

Conclusions: The results of the physicochemical analysis suggest that samples A and B were far preferable to samples C and D in terms of quality. According to the findings of this study, collecting medicinal plants from their natural habitat is preferred since contaminated environments might impact the physicochemical properties of the plant material.