Pharmacognostic and Preliminary Phytochemical Studies on Ruellia tuberosa L. (Whole plant)

Ruellia tuberoa L. of Acanthaceae family is a Minnie root medicinal, tropical plant widely distributed in south East Asia. In folk medicine, it has been used as diuretic, antidiabetic, antipyretic, analgesic, anti-hypersensitive, thirst-quenching, and antidotal agent. Recently this plant has been incorporated as a component in an herbal drink in Taiwan. However a very few chemical constituents and pharmacological activities have been reported for this species. As there is no pharmacognostic work reported on whole plant, the present investigation attempts to undertake to study the pharmacognostical and preliminary phytochemical studies along with HPTLC, fingerprinting analysis for whole plant of Ruellia tuberosa L. Preliminary organic analysis revealed the presence of tannin, flavonoid, steroid, triterpnoid and phenol in different extracts respectively. Physiochemical studies revealed that total ash is 13.53%, acid insoluble ash is 2.36%, alcohol soluble extractive value is 7.67%, water soluble extractive value is 24.78% and loss on drying at 105°C is 11.29%. These specific identities will be useful in identification and authentication of the raw drug.