Full Length Research Paper

    Abstract

Demands of traditional herbal medicines are increasing day by day over the world. Considering the growing demand of medicinal plants in curative treatments to our society and the role of VAM fungi in augmentation of the production of active secondary metabolites by the medicinal plants, the present work has been undertaken to survey the mycorrhizal status in three different species of Cassia viz, C. alata, C. occidentalis and C. sophera having  ethnobotanical uses. From Grid-line intersect method it was observed that C. alata possesses maximum root colonization (68 - 71%) by the VAM fungus followed by C. occidentalis (45 - 57%) and C. sophera (24 - 30%). Spore analysis from the rhizosphere soil sample exhibited a great deal of variation in their morphological features and they mostly belong to the species group of Glomus. An attempt has been made to study the antimicrobial property of the leaf extract of all of these three species of Cassia against a few gram positive and gram negative bacteria as well as against a few fungi which are mostly dermatophytes causing skin infection in human beings. It seems that C. alata is the most potent species for having significant antimicrobial activity.

Key words: Cassia alata, Cassia sophera, Cassia occidentalis, VAM, antimicrobial property.