Evaluation of Morphological Characters and Phytochemical Properties of Osbeckia octandra (L.) with Available Adulteration Materials in Sri Lanka

Aims: Osbeckia octandra (L.) is a medicinal plant widely used in traditional therapeutic systems to treat liver disorders due to presence of important phytochemicals. O. octandra is usually adulterated due to confusion in vernacular names and lack of accurate morphological identification. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate morphological characters and phytochemical properties of O. octandra with available adulterants namely Osbeckia aspera and Melastoma malabathricum.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out in the Department of Plant and Molecular Biology, University of Kelaniya from 1st May 2020 to 31st January 2021.

Methodology: Morphological characterization, phytochemical screening, and thin layer chromatography (TLC) were used to distinguish these three species.

Results: M. malabathricum can be clearly distinguish from O. octandra and O. aspera using morphological characters. The results of phytochemical screening of leaf extracts have shown the presence of saponin in hexane and distilled water extracts, where phenols, flavonoids and anthocyanin in ethyl acetate, ethanol, distilled water and boiled distilled water extracts for all species. M. malabathricum was clearly separated from O. octandra and O. aspera in TLC profile of ethanol extracts in solvent systems of Hexane (HE): Ethyl acetate (EA); 9:1, HE: EA; 13:7, HE: EA: Ethanol (ET); 6:3:1 and HE: EA: ET; 15:3:2 under visible light. TLC profiles of ethanol leaf extracts in solvent system HE: EA; 13:7 and HE: EA:ET; 15:3:2, and TLC profile of ethyl acetate in solvent system HE: EA; 13:7 have also revealed a clear difference between the phytochemical compositions of O. octandra, O. aspera and M. malabathricum under UV light (365nm).

Conclusion: Adulteration of O. octandra from O. aspera and M. malabathricum can be identified using morphological characters and TLC profiles.