author(s) : Fahem A. Ahmed and Abdel-Fattah M. Rizk
description
Oleaceae is a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants which is widely distributed in the temperate and tropical regions. This family includes 25 genera with approximately 688 species. Oleaceae family has significant economic, horticultural and medicinal importance. For example, many species in the genus Syringa are grown for beautification purposes and their flowers are extracted for essence (Huang et al., 2019). The species of Syringa oblata var. diatata, Jasminum nudiflorum Lindl., Osmanthus fragrans (Thunb.) Lour., Jasminum sambac (L.) Ait. and Forsythia suspensa are famous ornamental plants. Osmanthus fragrans (Thunb.) Lour. and J. sambac (L.) Ait. Also serve as sources of aromatic oil or food. Fraxinus mandshurica Rupr. is an excellent wood, which can be made into furniture. The samara of F. suspensa and the fruits of Ligustrum purpurascens Y. C. Yang are available for medicinal purposes. Phytochemical investigations have revealed that the main chemical constituents from this family are flavonoids, monoterpenoids, iridoids, secoiridoids and phenylethanoid glycosides, of which the secoiridoids have various biological activities (Huang et al., 2019). There are several reviews on the family Oleaceae (e.g., Jensen et al., 2002; Huang et al., 2019) as well as on some genera e.g., Forsythia (Zhang et al., 2012).
Genera Count
represented in egypt with 2 Genera
Species
represented in egypt with 3 Species
Phytochemical investigations on Forsythia species have shown that triterpenoids, lignans, flavonoids, phenylethanoid glycosides and C6-C2 natural alcohols, accumulated mainly in the fruits, are the major components (Zhang et al., 2012). Leaves of 97 taxa representing the genera in the family Oleaceae were surveyed for flavonoids. Four flavonol glycosides were found to be common, the 3-glucosides and 3-rutinosides of quercetin and kaempferol, as were four flavone glycosides, namely the 7-glucosides arid 7-rutinosides of luteolin and apigenin. Among rarer constituents detected were luteolin 4’-glucoside, eriodictyol 7-glucoside, chrysoeriol 7-glucoside, an apigenin-di-C-glycoside and several higher glycosides of quercetin. The species and genera surveyed fell into two groups: those with flavonol glycosides alone; and those with both flavonol and flavone glycosides (Harborne and Green, 1980).
Medicine, Pharmacological and Biological Activities
The fruits and/or leaves of some plants of genus Ligustrum are used in Chinese medicine as tonics, diuretics, immunomodulators and as a tea (Baróniková et al., 2001).
Fruits and leaves of Fraxinus dimorpha are widely used in the traditional pharmacopoeia of Morocco constituting an essential ingredient of multiple remedies preparations and spice mixtures used because of its diuretic, laxative and antirheumatic properties and as an aphrodisiac (M’sou et al., 2017). The seeds of the Fraxinus excelsior L. are used to treat diabetes because of their hypoglycemic effect. In Italy, the bark of Fraxinus ornus L. is used for treating diarrhea and lowering cholesterol (Huang et al., 2019).
Aqueous seed extract of Fraxinus excelsior has been shown to be highly potent in the reduction of blood glucose levels without significantly affecting insulin levels (Bai et al., 2010). The flowers and leaves of Syringa pubescens Turcz have long been used to treat chronic hepatitis, enteritis, cirrhosis, and liver and oesophagus cancers (Deng et al., 2010).
- JASMINUM
- OLEA
location
egypt