Pharmacognostical Standardization of Tephrosia purpurea Pers Root

Wild Indigo or Purple Tephrosia or fish poison occurs throughout the Indian subcontinent. It is widely used in the treatment of inflammation, diabetes, rheumatism, asthma, diarrhoea and many other ailments. But so far the pharmacognostic standardization has not been reported for its proper identification. Hence the present study is a pharmacognosy work carried out for the root part. This may help in the identification of the plant species. A thin transverse section, powder microscopy, measurement of the dimensions of cell structures, fluorescence analysis and physico chemical parameters were conducted for the root. From the TS, the secondary xylem fibres and vessels were found to be the tissues of diagnostic importance. The xylem vessels were of two types: narrow and long; broad and short. The important characters in the powdered microscopy were vessel elements, fibres and xylem parenchyma cells. The different fluorescent light shades were obtained under short and long UV light for both powder as well as the extracts of the root. The proximate analysis values were also obtained in a satisfactory way. Combining all these data a suitable root profile for plant can be constructed which may help in the identification of quality of the plant part.