Abstract

Medicinal plants are a rich source of bioactive constituents for traditional systems of medicine, modern medicines, neutraceuticals, food supplements, folk medicines, pharmaceutical intermediates and chemical entities for synthetic drugs. One of which is the wild edible plant-Bombax costatum plant, of the subfamily Bombacoideae and family Malvaceae; it has reported to have high nutritional value and possess phytochemicals, which could be attributed to its medicinal properties. The plant’s leaves were extracted and, the yield showed that Ethyl acetate had the highest yield of 5.07 %, followed by methanol 2.70 %, hexane 2.23 % and the least was acetone with 1.61 %. The proximate analysis were carried out following standard methods of analysis by AOAC, showed that the plant sample had an average moisture content of 5.92 g/100 g; ash content, 14.42 g/100 g; average crude protein 26.16 g/100 g; crude lipid 9.50 g/100 g, and crude fibre of 9.10g/100g. The antioxidant activity using the DPPH (1,1-Diphenyl-2-Picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging assay, showed that the extracts exhibited various degrees of antioxidant activities when compared with the Standard (Vitamin C). The result of the minimum inhibitory concentration (IC50) shows that Vitamin C had the highest scavenging ability (22.52 mg/mL), while the crude extracts were in the order: methanol, highest (57.56 mg/mL), acetone (71.22 mg/mL), ethyl acetate (76.08 mg/mL), and hexane (87.94 mg /mL). These solvents extracts gave a wide difference and varying percentage inhibitions from that of the Standard. This could be as a result of the bioactive constituents present in each extract. Hence, there is the need to explore the potentials of this plant’s leaves as a source of natural supplement and antioxidant as well as a precursor for antioxidant drugs development especially in the pharmaceutical industries. Also, the toxicity and anti-nutritional contents be properly investigated.