Comparative phytochemical and ethnomedicinal survey of selected medicinal plants in Nigeria

Phytochemical screening and ethnomedicinal survey of twenty-two medicinal plants distributed in fifteen different families were carried out in order to know the distribution of secondary metabolites and the diseases being treated with these plants. It was discovered that alkaloids, tannins and saponin were present in all. Flavonoid was absent only in Peperomia pellucida; five out of these plants lack terpene, ten of them have steroid; eleven of them have cardiac glycosides while only four of these twenty-two have phlobatannin. The ethnomedicinal survey revealed a wide range of human ailments being treated with these plants, ranging from eye infections, respiratory infections, inflammations, urinary diseases, jaundice, anaemia, arthritis to diabetes and dysentery. This study therefore, justifies the ethnobotanical significance of the plants by the presence of secondary metabolites, which if extracted, can be of significant medicinal usefulness in the synthesis of bioactive drugs. Therefore, the findings of this study are recommended for further screening to identify specific photochemical compounds of medicinal significance for bioprospecting and pharmaceutical production.