Proximate Composition, Qualitative and Quantitative Phytochemical Screening of Aqeous Extract of Aspilia africana (Asteraceae) C.D Adams Leaves

Abstract

Knowledge on phytobiotics for their nutritional value and usefulness is interestingly increasing. A study was conducted to investigate the proximate composition, quantitative and qualitative phytochemical constituents of Aspilia africana leaves. Fresh leaves of A. africana were obtained, identified and subjected to different processing methods for the proximate and phytochemical analysis. Standard methods of processing were used for the proximate and phytochemical analysis. Data obtained in this study were subjected to one way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the proximate analysis indicated that A. africana contained high crude protein, 15.62 ± 0.22%, ash content, 16.17 ± 0.19%, crude fibre of 14.44 ± 0.79% and a low fat content of 5.07 ± 0.04%. The phytochemical screening of tannin, alkaloid, saponins, sterols, terpenoids and glycosides revealed the presence of alkaloid in higher quantities (8.22 ± 0.40%), moderate quantity of tannin (2.23 ± 0.09%) and lowest quantity of terpenoids (0.34 ± 0.03%). The results of this study concluded that A. africana possessed some nutritional value and contained some active ingredients which makes it useful in human medicine as a result of its nutritional and medicinal value and its further strengthened the earlier works on the nutritional and medicinal values of A. africana.