Tannin content of leaf extracts of 53 trees used traditionally to treat diarrhoea is an important criterion in selecting species for further work

As other authors have found, the tannin content within a family varied strongly. Therefore it is dangerous to make any conclusions on the tannin content of the same plant family. About 42% of the species had no detectable tannin content and another 25% contained 0-2 mg/ml gallic acid equivalent tannins. In general it appears that in most cases tannins do not play a major role in treating diarrhoea in southern African ethnomedicine. If aqueous extracts were used, the situation could have been different.