Abstract:
The genus Salacia belongs to family Hippocrateaceae and consists of
climbing woody plants. S. reticulata plays a significant role in Ayurveda
medicine due to their anti-diabetic properties. However, due to
depletion/overuse of S. reticulata, now it seems that materials of S. oblonga
are available in open market. Moreover, due to similar appearance of these
two species, it is difficult to identify them correctly. Hence, use of this
species for medicinal purposes correctly is a difficult task. Therefore, this
research was conducted for characterization of both Salacia species using
morphological, anatomical and chemical characters for easy identification.
For morphological characterization, characters of the leaf (maximum width,
maximum length, apex, base, shape, margin, and arrangements), the stem
(color, appearance, presence of lenticels and lichens), roots (color), and the
fruit (fruit shape, number of seeds present in a fruit, seed size and fruit size)
were used. For anatomical characters, stem sections of both species were
stained and examined under light microscope. For biochemical characters,
leaf, stem and roots extracts with different solvents were used for Thin
Layer Chromatography (TLC) and separated compounds were detected by
viewing their natural color, Iodine vapor test, Vanillin test and UV
visualization. Resulted dendrograms from statistical analysis using those
characters showed that these two species were separated into two clusters
according to species. According to the morphological characters, root color
and fruit shape can be applicable for field identification accurately.
Pigmented cells in hypodermis in S. reticulata and specific cellular
arrangements in between vascular rays in S. oblonga were useful for
anatomical differentiation of two species. Different patterns with TLC were
observed for differentiation of both species. In this context, these
discoveries on morphological anatomical and chemical methods lead to
accurate identification of S. reticulata and S. oblonga.