Antifungal, antibacterial and phytochemical properties of Petiveria Alliacea plant from Iwo, Nigeria

Abstract

Petiveria alliacea plant has been a medicinal plant for decades and has been used both in the traditional and modern ways over these periods. This article highlights part of its medicinal properties particularly, antimicrobial and phytochemicals. Antibacterial and antifungal assay was carried out on both the leaves and root extracts and it was discovered that, for the antibacterial, the methanolic extracts of roots are more effective while the chloroform extracts of leaves are more efficacious. The leaves extracts however proved to be a better antifungal than the root extracts. The following phytochemicals (alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids, tannins, terpenoids and steroids) were analyses in five different extracts (aqueous, methanolic and chloroform extracts of roots as well as chloroform and methanolic extracts of leaves). The results showed that aqueous extracts is more useful medicinally for it contains more phytochemicals than other extracts.