author(s) : Abdel-Fattah M. Rizk, Fahem A. Ahmed and Ibrahim A. El-Garf
description
The family Alismataceae (a monocotyledon) has 14 genera and about 100 species (Boulos, 2005).
Several diterpenes (e.g. abietene, cembrene and nitrogen containing clerodane diterpenes) have been isolated from Echinodorus and Sagittaria species.
Genera Count
represented in egypt with 3 Genera
Species
represented in egypt with 4 Species
Several diterpenes (e.g. abietene, cembrene and nitrogen containing clerodane diterpenes) have been isolated from Echinodorus and Sagittaria species
(Table 1).
Phytol was the major component of the essential oil of Echinodorus grandiflorus The main sesquiterpene representatives are (E)-caryophyllene, α-humulene and (E)-nerolidol (Pimenta et al., 2006).
The major components of the essential oil of Sagittaria trifolia (a well-known medicinal foodstuff in China) are hexahydrofarnesyl acetone (62.3%), tetramethylhexadecanone (5.8%), myristaldehyde (4.7%), n-pentadecane (2.9%) and 2-hexyl decanol (2.9%).
The antimicrobial activity of the oil was also reported (Zheng et al., 2006). Arabinothalictoside (a phenolic glycoside containing a nitroethyl group) was identified from the fresh tubers of Sagittaria trifolia L. (Yoshikawa et al., 1996).
Ergosterol peroxide, icariside D2, thalictoside and 4-nitrophenyl β-D-glucopyranoside were isolated from the same species (Kim et al., 1998). Five glucosylflavones, five hydroxycinnamoyl tartaric acids, and trans-aconitic acid were separated from the leaves of Echinodorus grandiflorus ssp. aureus (Schnitzle et al., 2007).
The quantitative determination of phenols (guaiacol, catechol and pyrogallic acid) and chlorogenic acid, in Sagittaria sagittifolia has been reported (Tan, 2007).
The leaves of Echinodorus grandiflorus are used traditionally in Brazil to treat hepatitis and for their diuretic and antirheumatic activities (Kobayashi et al., 2000b; Schnitzle et al., 2007).
The diterpenoids trifoliones A-D, isolated from Sagittaria trifolia exhibited inhibitory effects on the histamine release from rat mast cells (Yoshikawa et al., 1996).
The antibacterial activity of the diterpenoids of Sagittaria pygmaea was also reported (Liu et al., 2007a).The family Alismataceae is represented in Egypt by three genera and four species (Boulos, 2005).
location
egypt