ETHNOBOTANICAL SURVEY AND PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF MEDICINAL PLANTS USED IN SOUTHWESTERN PART OF NIGERIA AS ANALGESICS

Abstract

The gradual threat to plants and the inevitable disappearance of the aged Traditional Medical Practitioner are posing an impending time limit for people to learn, acquire, and document the rich medical cultural endowment.  This cultural endowment is essential for the benefit of all Africans and indeed the entire mankind. Hence, the urgent need for continual ethno-botanical survey of medicinal plants in Nigeria. Ethnobotanical survey was carried out using structured questionnaire to obtain information from trado-medical practitioners from Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Lagos States.  Samples of eleven commonly used plants were collected and authenticated at the Forest Herbarium Ibadan, where voucher specimens were deposited. Extracts of each plant (leaf, root or seeds) were obtained by soxhlet extraction using methanol, diethyl ether and water, concentrated and screened for phytochemical constituents using standard procedures. Thirty-one plant species belonging to 24 families are being used as analgesics, of which Macrosphyra longistyla, Strophanthus hispidus, Buchholzia coriacea, Calliandra portoricensis, Secamone afzeli, Chasmanthera dependens, Spilanthes filicaulis, Moringa oleifera, Clerodendrum volubile, Petiveria alliacea, Carpolobia lutea were prevalent. Methanol and diethyl ether extracts of the plants contained alkaloids, saponins, tannins, phenols, anthraquinones and glycosides while, aqueous extracts contained alkaloids, saponins and glycosides.