Phytochemical screening, quantification and correlation matrix of Nigerian medicinal plant: Waltheria americana

Abstract

Background: Plant’s kingdom provides new and important leads against various pharmacological targets due to the current wide spread of belief that green medicine is safe and more dependable than the costly synthetic drugs. The medicinal property of plants step from their ability to synthesize aromatic substances and secondary metabolites that are potent bioactive compounds found in medicinal plant parts that are precursors for the synthesis of useful drugs. In the present study, the leaf, stem, and root extracts of Waltheria americana were evaluated for phytochemical compositions and their correlation matrix. Methods: Quantitative and quantitative standard methods of analysis were used to evaluate the presence, amount, and the correlationships of the different phytochemicals in the leaf, root and stem of W. americana plant. Results: The quantitative phytochemicals percentage composition of W. americana varied with large ranges for alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, but short ranges occurred of terpenes and cardiac glycosides. Alkaloids had the highest percentage composition and cardiac glycosides showed the lowest for all the plant parts. The stem seems to be the major area of phytochemical production than other parts of the plant, indicating that the stem of W. americana could serve as a major source of phytochemicals in any herbal concoction. “The correlation” of phytochemical constituents, alkaloids and tannins in the leaf were positively and significantly correlated with cardiac glycosides in the stem at 95% confidence respectiely. However, no correlation was observed of any phytochemicals in the other plant. Conclusion: These findings indicated that the production, quantification, and distribution of these phytochemicals were complimentary in nature in Waltheria americana plant, and the shoot may have played a major role in this regard