THE MAJOR CONSTITUENT OF THE ACETONE FRACTION OF ETHIOPIAN MORINGA STENOPETALA LEAVES

Kaleab Asres Department of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1776, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

VOL. 11, No. 1, pp. 55-64, 1995

ABSTRACT

Phytochemical investigation of the leaves of Moringa stenopetala (Moringaceae), a plant widely used in Ethiopian traditional medicine for the control of diabetes and hypertension, afforded the medicinally useful glycoside rutin. The structure was assigned on the basis of spectroscopic methods (UV, MS, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR) and hydrolytic studies. The rutin content in the dried leaves was found to be about 1%. Although rutin has been isolated from many plant families, this is the first report of its occurrence in the family Moringaceae.