Abstract

The study of natural products has
given rise to the discovery of a variety of useful drugs
for effective management of several diseases . Phytochemical constituents of plants are
fingered to be biologically active compounds responsible for different activities such as
analgesic, anti inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal and anticancer. Thus,
assessment of phytochemical constituents of plants is of utmost importance in medic ine.
There is however paucity of information on the comparative assessment of leaves and
seeds of Datura stramonium D. stramonium ). The refore, the present study was carried out
to compare the phytochemical constituents of D. stramonium leaves and seeds. E thanol was
used for the extraction using standard method. Phytochemical screening was performed
using various quantitative methods. The ratio of leaves versus seeds of phytochemical
quantitative analysis wa s as follows: saponins (65.25: 34.25 mg/g), alkalo ids (32.10: 71.28
mg/g), flavonoids (44.24: 30.12 mg/g), terpenoids (32.68:30.20 mg/g), tannins
(31.25:26.62), respectively. This implies that saponins were dominant compounds followed
by flavonoids and terpenoids in leaves while alkaloids were the dominan t phytochemical in
seeds. Based on our results, it is concluded that leaf and seed extracts of D. stramonium
have varying concentrations of phytochemicals with the seed having higher concentration
of alkaloids justifying why the seed is more toxic than the leaves while leaf extract had
highest concentration of saponins and flavonoids giving credence to the antioxidant
property of the leaves . Good quantity of various phytochemicals in this plant justifies its
traditional use in the treatment of various disea ses.