Mucilagenous Contents of Certain Egyptian Plants

Abstract

The mucilages of certain organs of plants abundant in Egypt viz: seeds of Ceratonia siliqua L., Trigonella foenum-graecum L., Corchorus olitorius L., corms of Colocasia esculenta SCHOTT. and fruits of Cordia myxa L. were studied. "PC cil; hv,-J tat Each ~ l a n t organ was retreated to nove interfering substances and the :ratted mucilage (by cold and hot thods) was also ~urified from con-ninants. The chemical composition of the mu-ages was studied by analysing the drol~sates quantitatively and quali-by thin layer and gas chromato-~phy. Their relative viscosities were D determined. Plants which grow abundantly and are rich in mucilages are of economic interest to us in Egypt. For this pur-i pose, the seeds of Ceratonia siliqua L. (Locust or Kharoub beans), Trigonella foenum-graecum L. (Fenugreek or Hel-ba) and Corchorus olitorius L. (Corcho-rus or Moloukhiya); the corms of Colo-casia esculenta SCHOTT. (Colocasia) and the fruits of Cordia myxa L. (Cordia) have been examined. Several authors have reported on the isolation and analysis of the mucilages from the se plant organs. The mucilage of Locust seeds is claimed to be composed of galactan, mannan and pento-san [7,16], that of Corchorus is of galac-tose, rharnnose, arabinose, xylose and uronic acid [3]; that of Colocasia is of D-galactose, L-arabinose and uronic acid (Amin, 1955) [2], that of Cordia is of D-glucose, fructose, galacturonic acid and an unidentified sugar [12]; while that of Fenugreek is of galactom-anan origin [9, 101. The medioinal properties of these mucilages described in the literature [6, 8, 151, as well as the abundance of these plant materials in Egypt have initiated our interest to carry out the present' work.