Preliminary phytochemical investigations on some wild cucurbitaceae plants

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the preliminary phytochemical constituents of four wild Cucurbitaceae plants such as Corallocarpus epigaeus, Mukia maderaspatana, Diplocyclos palmatus and Lagenaria siceraria. All the above selected plants wildly grow throughout India. The plants for the present investigation were collected from Mysore (Karnataka) and Chittor (Andra Pradesh) districts. Qualitative phytochemical screening was undertaken to check for the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, anthroquinones, phenols, cardiac glycosides, di and triterpenoids in various extracts such as petroleum ether, chloroform and methanol. Among all the three extracts, maximum phytochemicals werefound dissolved in methanol followed by chloroform and then petroleum ether. The presence of phenols, tannins, flavonoids, alkaloids and terpenoids confirms that these plants possess valuable medicinal properties that can be further isolated and characterized to establish their potential against ailments