Abstract

Plants from the Cola genus are particularly rich in secondary metabolites. Cola hispida is one of the well spread species of the Cola genus used ethno-medicinally for the treatment of ear infections, stomach troubles, whopping cough, malaria, depression and anxiety. In this article, we investigated the phytochemical constituents of the leaves of Cola hispida and their antimicrobial activity. The powdered leaves (1kg) of Cola hispida were extracted exhaustively with methanol via soxhlet extraction to yield the methanol crude extract. The crude extract was fractionated with solvent of increasing polarity- n-hexane, ethyl acetate, nbutanol and methanol to give n-hexane, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and methanol fractions respectively. The crude extract was subjected to qualitative and quantitative phytochemical screening using standard procedures. The crude extract and fractions were screened for antimicrobial activities using the Agar well diffusion method. The qualitative phytochemical screening of the crude extract revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, steroids, carbohydrates, resins, reducing sugar, glycosides and phenols. The quantitative estimation of secondary metabolite of the methanolic extract showed higher level of tannins followed by flavonoids, alkanoids, phenols and the terpenoids. The crude extract and fractions showed a significant broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity against the test organisms, Escherichia Coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus substilis, Candida albican, Aspergillus niger.