| dc.description.abstract | Rumex species have been widely used around
the world for anthelmintic and laxative
purposes. In this country R. abyssinicus,
R. bequaertii and R. usambarensis are reputed
as useful for the same purposes in traditional
medicine. Along with R. ruwenzorensis they
complete the list of this genus of polygonaceae
family which are indigenous to Kenya. Another
species growing here but was introduced only
recently is R. crispus which is a native of
America and Euroasian continents. Its distribution
here is still restricted to the areas
around Nairobi and Molo towns.
In this work, on the indigenous Rumex
species, the roots, stems and leaves, and seeds
were surveyed for existence of various
secondary metabolites. Only the roots of
R. crispus were surveyed for these compounds.
Anthraquinones and their glycosides are
established to have anthelmintic and laxative
activity in human alimentary canal (Fairbairn;
1949) .
The ground powders of the parts of the
plants were subjected to successive extraction
fractionation in a soxhlet with the solvents,
petroleum ether, chloroform and methanol. The
first two fractions were usually combined and
subjected to silica gel chromatography to
separate the orange pigments. | en |
