<i>Parkia biglobosa</i> (Mimosaceae) Leaves, Fruits’ Pulp, and Barks of Stem and Root Phytochemicals Contents and Their Antioxidant Activities

Abstract

More and more Parkia biglobosa plants’ stem barks, and roots are collected for traditional medicine uses. This work aimed to quantify Parkia biglobosa plant parts total polyphenols, total flavonoids contents and their antioxidant activities. The hypothesis was that the plant parts would have different phytochemical contents. So, leaves, stem barks, root barks and mature fruit pulp were collected. Alongside the leaves, the stem and root barks were sliced, air-dried at room temperature for 30 days. Thereafter, the samples were crushed and sieved. Following this, the powders were extracted with distilled water by maceration and decoction. As a result, the decoction was more efficient than the maceration. Leaves had the highest total polyphenol content (14.68), followed by stem barks (11.69), and root barks (9.09 ± 0.43 mg GAE/g) (0.0001 ≤ p ≤ 0.0002). However, for total flavonoid contents, the stem barks were better than the other parts. Indeed, stem barks delivered 0.74 and were followed by leaves for 0.6, and root bark for 0.49 ± 0.02 mg EQ/g (0.0001 ≤ p ≤ 0.0169). Finally, the antioxidant activities were 3.07 and 2.86 ± 0.1 μmol T.E/g, respectively for stem bark, and leaves (p = 0.0532). In conclusion, there is no need to debark the stems, because, in decoction, leaves and stem barks would have the same efficacy.