Background: Medicinal plants are the major sources of the crude drugs and natural antioxidants. Berberis species have been used in the treatment of various ailments around the world including Nepal. However, systematic study on phytochemistry and pharmacology of Berberis species from Nepal is lacking. Objectives: To evaluate the antioxidant activity, total phenolic and flavonoid contents of Berberis aristata and Berberis thomsoniana from Sagarmatha National Park. Materials and Methods: Antioxidant activity was measured through 2, 2-Diphenyl-1-Picrylhydrazyl assay. Total phenolic and flavonoid content were estimated using Folin-Ciocalteau and aluminum chloride method respectively. Results: Samples showed dose-dependent radical scavenging activity. Radical scavenging activity of the methanolic extracts of different parts of B. aristata and B. thomsoniana ranged from 19.38 to 98.47%, with leaf extracts of B. thomsoniana showing the strongest activity. The total phenolic content of the samples varied from 11.04 to 65.30 mg GAE g -1 dry weight whereas total flavonoid content was in between 2.4 to 16.46 mg quercetin/g dry weight. Conclusion: Among the tested samples, leaf extracts of B. thomsoniana showed the strongest antioxidant activity and contained the highest amount of total phenolic and flavonoid content. ABSTRACT SUMMARY• Present study showed that leaf extract of B. thomsoniana showed promising antioxidant ability and contained higher amount of phenolics and flavonoids.Dr. Lok Ranjan Bhatt is a Senior Scientific Officer at Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Nepal. He has more than twenty years of experience in the areas of medicinal and aromatic plants, natural products and biomaterials. Currently, he has been working on nutritional composition of wild edible fruits and synthesis and characterization of herbal based polymer micro/nanospheres.

This experiment was conducted for assessing the antifungal activities of essential oils and crude extracts of some aromatic plants against Fusarium rot of Trichosanthes dioica was at the Central Department of Botany. Pathogenicity test was taken for the confirmation of disease by transferring the inoculum from pure culture. For the control of the above fungus essential oils and extracts of five aromatic plants Zanthoxylum armatum, Mentha arvensis, Amomum subulatum, Valeriana jatamansi and Cymbopogon flexuosus were used. Each oil and extracts were diluted in different concentration in 80% acetone and in distilled water respectively. The value of minimum inhibitory concentration and percentage of mycelia growth inhibition of oil and extracts were obtained as, oil of C. flexuosus showed the higest fungitoxicity (100%) at the 5.0 and 50 ?lml-1 concentration followed by Z. armatum, M. arvensis, A. subulatum and V. jatamansi were found to be 10 and 100 ?lml-1 respectively also the higest percentage of mycelial growth inhibitors were found to be C. flexuosus followed by A. subulatum, Z. armatum, M. arvensis and V. jatamansi . Similarly extracts of C. flexuosus followed by Z. armatum, A. subulatum, V. jatamansi and M .arvensis respectively. Nepal Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2 (2012) 97-102 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njst.v13i2.7720