Abstract
Carpolobia lutea is a medicinal plant commonly utilized in Nigeria to boost libido. The ethnomedicinal importance of any plant lies in some secondary metabolites. Hence, the present study was carried out to investigate the proximate and phytochemical composition of roots and leaves of this plant using standard methods. The proximate composition of leaves and roots showed moisture, ash, fibre, protein, fat and carbohydrate contents with values that ranged between 8.84-9.55, 3.48-3.65, 1.10-1.06, 6.64-8.39, 1.80-1.80 and 76.16-77.47% respectively. The leaves contained higher amount of ash, crude protein and fat than the roots. The results of ethanolic extracts showed the presence of alkaloids, anthraquinones, steroids, saponins, tannins, phenols, terpenoids, anthocyanin, carotenoids and flavonoids in both the leaves and roots. These phytochemicals were found to be significantly higher in roots except for anthraquinones, flavonoids and steroids which were significantly higher in the leaves. Among the phytochemicals, alkaloids were found to be highest in concentration followed in decreasing order by saponins, steroids, tannins, flavonoids, anthraquinones, anthocyanin, terpenoids, phenols and carotenoids. The results indicated that, C. lutea leaf and root have high nutritive and medicinal values and this could be explored for pharmaceutical purposes.
Highlights
Carpolobia lutea is a member of the family Polygalaceae
The results of proximate composition of C. lutea plant parts showed that percentage moisture, ash, crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre and carbohydrate ranged from 8.8-9.6%, 3.5-3.6%, 6.6-8.4%, 1.8-1.9%, 1.10% and 76.2-77.5%, respectively (Table 1)
Crude protein, crude fat and crude fibre contents were significantly higher in the leaf than that of root
Summary
Carpolobia lutea is a member of the family Polygalaceae. It is widely distributed in west and central areas of tropical Africa where it occurs as an evergreen shrub or tree of 5 m height (Akpan et al, 2012). Other ethnomedicinal uses include use of the root decoction as an aphrodisiac in the case of paroxetineinduced sexually dysfunction in sexually active male rats as well as treatments of genitourinary infections, gingivitis and waist pain (Ettebong and Nwafor, 2009; Yakubu and Jimoh, 2014). It is used as an analgesic, curing of rheumatism, fever, insanity, dermal infections, venereal diseases, sterility, as a taeniafuge and vermifuge as well as facilitation of child birth (Muanya and Odukoya, 2008). It is the focus of this study to provide information on the proximate and phytochemical constituents most importantly the leaf and root of C. lutea which have been variously reported to be of immense medicinal values
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