The Journal of Indian Botanical Society

Semecarpus anacardium belongs to family Anacardiaceae is well known for its use in ayurveda, siddha and unani as a potent medicinal herb since ancient times. In ayurveda Semecarpus anacardium is also named as Bhallataka. It is used as remedy on different ailments viz. skin diseases, fever, analgesic, antineoplastic, also act as antitumour, antiallergic etc. These actions are attributed to a wide range of phytoconstituents present in this plant. The oil of nuts is used as mark on cloth for the purpose of identification, hence it is known as marking nut or ‘Dhobi nut ’. In the existing study, qualitative analysis of secondary metabolites was done by thin layer chromatographic separation method. Total flavonoids content and total phenolic content of methanolic extract of Semecarpus anacardium nuts was quantitatively estimated by Aluminium chloride colorimetric method (as quercetin equivalent) and Folin-Ciocalteu method (as caffeic acid equivalent) respectively. The total phenolic contents observed was 26.520±0.493 mg/gdw and total flavonoid contents was observed 6.46±0.431 mg/gdw.