Investigation of the Unsaponifiable and Saponifiable Matters of Pachypodium Lamerei Drake Leaves and Stems by GC/MS

Pachypodium lamerei Drake (family Apocynaceae) is native to Madagascar and is known as Madagascar palm. The present study shows that, the unsaponifiable matter of P. lamerei contains various compounds identified as hydrocarbons (5.43%), pregnane (0.92%), steroids (11.54%), triterpenes (8.78%) as well as other oxygenated compounds (61.3%). While, the saponifiable matter contains twenty compounds from which ten were identified as methyl esters of saturated fatty acids (32.31%) in addition to hydroxylated fatty acids (9.96%) whereas ten fatty acids (57.73%) couldn’t be identified. This is the first record of the GC/MS analysis for genus Pachypodium.