Multi-elemental analysis of some traditional medicinal plants from Marghalla Hill National Park, Pakistan

Abstract

Multi-nutritional effect of plants is a gift from nature. Instead of having a great source of food, large variety of plants are also
used as medicine due to presence of large amount of nutritive and non-nutritive compounds. The present study was conducted
on the traditional medicinal plants from Marghalla Hills National Park in 2020-2021 in the Department of Botany, PMAS Arid
Agriculture Lab for their multi-elemental analysis. In the qualitative phytochemical analysis most of plants species were found
rich in term of nutritive and non-nutritive compounds. While in the quantitative analysis, C. arvensis, S. mocroofitiana and P.
plebeium showed high total phenolic content (120.86 ± 0.44 μg GAE/mg, 113 ± 0.26 μg GAE/mg, 103.94 ± 0.19 μg GAE/mg)
and flavonoid content (83.47 ± 0.32μg QE/mg, 46.32 ± 0.29 μg QE/mg and 38.52 ± 0.30 μg QE/mg). High scavenging ability
and total antioxidant ability was observed in the extracts of S. heteromalla (98.37 μg/ml; 99.3637 μg/ml) and C. arvensis
(147.096 μg/ml; 102.34637 μg/ml). While high reducing ability was observed in P. plebeium. The high nutritive value was
observed in C. arvensis and L. aphaca with the values of 407.28 ± 0.49 kcal/100 g and 407.78 ± 0.59 kcal/100g. Several micro
and macro minerals were observed in different concentration in. The results of the present study revealed that the traditional
medicinal plants are high in their nutritive and non-nutritive components which provide the strong relationship of their
medicinal effect. This study will provide a base for the researcher to explore these plants for their biological activities. © 2022
Department of Agricultural Sciences, AIOU