Preliminary Phytochemical Standardisation of Portulaca oleracea Linn.

Portulaca oleracea is commonly known as purslane belonging to family Portulaceae. It has been used as folk medicine in many countries as diuretic, febrifuge, antiseptic, antimicrobial effects. Systematic Pharmacognostical evaluation of dried powdered plant of purslane has been carried out according to WHO guidelines with respect to macroscopy, microscopy, physicochemical parameters, chemical reactions and fluorescent analysis etc. Physicochemical evaluation results like total ash 15.25%, water solube ash 6.33%, acid insoluble ash 3.5%, foreign matter 2.23%, moisture content 3.45% respectively. Tannin content was found to be 3.02%. Both successive and cold maceration in various solvents like petroleum ether (3.3%), benzene (6.3%), chloroform (9.3%), ethyl acetate (11.6%), methanol (17.6%). Cold maceration values, petroleum ether (3.3%), benzene (4.2%), chloroform (8.0%), ethyl acetate (11.0%), methanol (17.1%). Behaviour on treatment with different chemical reagents of the dried whole plant, fluorescence characters under both visible and ultralviolet light (short uv 254nm and long uv 360nm) was compared with Asian nerolac synthetic and puja satin enamel colour reference card. Further preliminary phytochemical screening of different extracts of whole herb revealed the presence of alkaloids, glycosides, steroids, flavonoids, phenols, proteins and amino acids.