American Research Journal of Biosciences

Human dependence on natural crude drugs as remedies increases day after day and there are still very many plants/ plant parts whose medicinal values are yet to be established. Research is still ongoing to bridge the gap by extracting the active ingredients in plants for preparation of useful drugs by pharmaceutical industries. Interestingly, the medicinal values of the nuts, barks and roots of the two species of Cola in the present study have been reported by some researchers. However, there is no information regarding the phytochemistry of the leaves of this species. Therefore, the present study is the first to provide information on the phytochemistry of leaves of Cola acuminata and C. nitida. The Phytochemistry of the leaves was carried out using standard procedures. The results of the study revealed the presence of useful phytochemicals. Averages of 70.03 ± 23.34(mgQE/g), 22.96 ± 7.65(mgGAE/g), 13.44 ± 4.48(mgTAE/g), 1.01 ± 0.34(mg/g), and 0.16 ± 0.05(mg/g) were the quantities of flavonoids, phenols, tannins, alkanoids and saponins in the leaf of C.nitida respectively. Whereas, the leaf of C. acuminata contained 26.71 ± 12.24 (mgQE/g), 23.52 ± 7.84(mgGAE/g), 15.32 ± 5.11(mgTAE/g), 1.23 ± 0.41(mg/g) and 0.22 ± 0.07(mg/g) of flavonoids, phenols, tannins, alkanoids and saponins respectively. The relevance of the phytochemicals was discussed with a view to increasing the utility of the leaves by humans.