Qualitative and Quantitative Estimations of Some Wild Edible Leafy Vegetable Plants in Kondagaon Chhattisgarh

Abstract

Leafy medicinal plants have important role in Human Life as well as animals. The wild leafy plants contain some chemical substances that produce a definite physiological action on the human body. Leafy vegetables have long been used as the component of our daily diet. Such vegetables are not only the sources of various nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, minerals and vitamins rather also enhance the appetite and bowel health due to their roughage nature.During present investigation qualitative and quantitative properties of 12 cultivated and wild plants used as leafy vegetables in Kondagaon have been studied. These leafy plants were Allium cepa, Carthamustinctorius,  Cassiatora, Cleome viscosa, Colocasia esculenta, Corchoruscapsularis, Cordiasubcordata, Ficusmollis, Moringapterygosperma,  Pilulariaglobulifera, Solanumtuberosum and Trigonellafoenum. All the leafy plants under investigation were studied for the presence or absence of nutrientslike carbohydrates, saponins, tannins, flavonoids, alkaloids, proteins, terpenoids, phenols and glycosides. Alsoquantitative estimation of above plants were doneto determine the amount ofnutrients like phenols, flavonoids, alkaloids andterpenoidspresent in those plants. The result showed that presence of Phenols was found minimum in Corchorus capsularis(0.04%)and maximum in Moringapterygosperma(0.57%) among all 12 leafy plants. Another nutrient Flavonoids was calculated by spectrophotometric method  and it was found that flavonoid was minimum in Solanum tuberosum(0.02%) and maximum in Carthamus tinctorius(0.37%). Alkaloids was found minimum in Cleome viscosa(0.07gm) and maximum in Moringapterygosperma(0.65gm), it was calculated by Harborne (1973) method. Terpenoids was calculated by the procedure of Ferguson (1956) and found minimum in Cleome viscosa(0.04gm) and maximum in Carthamus tinctorius(0.39gm).