Morphoanatomical and preliminary phytochemical studies of two specimens of Dorstenia Contrajerva native to Guatemala

Abstract

This work presents a descriptive study of the morphoanatomical characters and preliminary phytochemical data, of the vegetative organs and the inflorescences of Dorstenia contrajerva L. and D. contrajerva var. tenuiloba (Blake) Standl. & Steyerm. that grows in Guatemala, useful to establish identity characters for quality control standards, especially when they are dry and/or fragmented. The techniques used were freehand cutting, leaf diaphanization, maceration and screening of secondary metabolites by histochemical and thin layer chromatography methods. Both specimens of D. contrajerva showed widely simple lobed leaves, actinodromous reticulate venation, hypostomatic leaves with anisocytic and anomocytic stomata at level and sunk. Glandular hairs with 1-2 cellular head and unicellular stalk, uncinate, large and small simple hairs. The stem and rhizome, circular and irregular, present simple uncinate hairs, laminar collenchyma and open collateral vascular bundles, arranged in a eustele. A polyarch root and evident cuticle was found. Inflorescence shows simple uncinate and hispidule large and small hairs, glandular ones with unicellular stalk and 1-2 cellular head and papillary hairs. The phytochemical screening showed the presence of starch grains, fats and oils, mucilages, saponins and coumarins. Most of the findings in this study, matches the ones reported for other authors to other species of Moraceae family, but many of them were no previously reported for other species of Dorstenia genus. Original photomicrographs show the main characters.