Baphia Nitida
Camwood (Baphia nitida), otherwise known as African sandalwood or barwood, is a leguminous, shrubby, hard-wooded, erect small tree native to central west Africa. It grows up to 10 m tall and 45cm across and is usually planted as an ornamental shade tree or hedge. The bark and heartwood are great sources of a high-quality red dye used to dye raffia and cotton textiles. Camwood is also used as a medicinal plant. In particular, it has been used in traditional African medicine. The leaves have inflammatory activities, antidiarrheal effects, and analgesic activities. Powdered heartwood can be made into an ointment with shea butter for sprains, swollen joints, and rheumatic pains. Roots have medicinal properties as well. The twigs are used as chewing sticks. The seeds are edible. Other Names: Barwood, Dolo, Doro, African Sandalwood.
baphia nitida
Baphia nitida, also known as camwood, barwood, and African sandalwood (although not a true sandalwood), is a shrubby, leguminous, hard-wooded tree from central west Africa. It is a small understorey, evergreen tree, often planted in villages, and known as osun in Yoruba.
Leaves of Baphia nitida are used in folk medicine for the treatment of inflamed and infected umbilical cords in Nigeria. Phytochemical analysis of the leaves detected tannins, flavonoids and saponin glycosides. Flavonoid rich fraction of the leaf, obtained by a chromatographic process, was formulated into an ointment and tested at 3 dose levels for anti-inflammatory activity against croton oil and heat induced inflammation on ears of mice and depilated backs of rats, respectively. Both provide evidence for the ability of this fraction to inhibit the inflammatory condition on the rodents. The activity was found to be dose related, and the mouse ear model was found to be the more sensitive of the two tests used. Hydrocortisyl cream used as a positive control reference was significantly active in both systems. These results provide a scientific basis for the traditional use of the leaves of Baphia nitida as an anti-inflammatory agent.
Chromatographic separation of the 50% aqueous EtOH extract of the leaves of the African medicinal tree Baphia nitida resulted in isolation of 10 iminosugars. The plant contained 2R,5R-dihydroxymethyl-3R,4R-dihydroxypyrrolidine (DMDP) as a major alkaloid. The structure of a new alkaloid was also elucidated by spectroscopic methods as the 1-O-β-d-fructofuranoside of DMDP, and this plant produced 3-O-β-d-glucopyranosyl-DMDP as well. DMDP is a potent inhibitor of β-glucosidase and β-galactosidase, whereas the other two derivatives lowered inhibition toward both of these enzymes and improved inhibitory activities toward rice α-glucosidase and rat intestinal maltase.
Baphia nitida (également connue comme camwood) est une espèce de plantes de la famille des Fabaceae, elle appartient au genre Baphia. Elle est présente au Cameroun.
Baphia nitida Lodd. et al. Fabaceae. CN: African-sandalwood, Barwood, Camwood. Native to West-Central Tropical Africa and West Tropical Africa. shrubby, hard-wooded African tree. Its wood is commonly used to make a red dye. The earliest dye wood (Camwood) was from West Africa. The source of the dye, which is soluble in alkali, is the bark and heart of the tree.Camwood is a red dye-wood from tropical West Africa. Also planted in urban landscaping and parks. Also planted as hedge and topiary in urban landscaping and parks.
Objectives: Baphia nitida is a tropical plant used in African folkloric medicine for the treatment of infections and inflammatory conditions. This study therefore seeks to investigate the biological activities including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of leaf and root methanol extracts of B. nitida.
Results: The result showed that B. nitida extract caused a concentration dependent percentage increase of antioxidant activity. The leaves and root extract demonstrated potent anti-inflammatory activity at low concentrations of between 25-75 mg /kg body weight. The ascorbic acid standard had a better antioxidant activity of 63.59% at the concentration of 10 µg/ml and 81.63% at 400 µg/ml.
Conclusion: The methanol root extract at lower doses exhibited anti-inflammatory properties. Methanol leaf extract than the root extract. Both the leaf and root extracts of B. nitida exhibited antioxidant activity.
With the depletion of oil resources as well as the negative environmental impact associated with the use of fossil fuels; selfsufficiency in energy requirement is critical to the success of any developing economy. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics. Presently, over 70% of the population of the people in Africa lives in rural areas where there are resources for agriculture. Gliricidia sepium and Baphia nitida are two underutilized plants in Nigeria; they are planted as a shade tree. Their seeds are discarded as waste in Nigeria creating a waste disposal problem. Biodiesel was produced from the oils of these underutilized seeds using a two-step reaction system. The first step is a pretreatment which involved the use of 2% sulphuric acid in methanol and secondly, transesterification reaction using KOH as catalyst. The result of the method applied showed a conversion of ester content above 98% with phosphorus content below 1 ppm while the copper strip corrosion test was 1A in both biodiesel. The oil of Gliricidia sepium and Baphia nitida with high free fatty acid can be reduced in a one-step pretreatment of esterification using H2SO4 as catalyst. This one-step pretreatment reduced the problem of soap formation normally encountered when using oil with free fatty acid for the production of biodiesel, thus reducing the production cost of the Gliricidia sepium and Baphia nitida biodiesel. The biodiesel produced from the oil of Gliricidia sepium and Baphia nitida exhibited properties that are in agreement with the recommended European standard (EN 14214). [email protected]
The constituents of some selected local plants: Red Baphia nitida (BN1) and yellow Baphia nitida (BN2) camwood; Curcuma lunga knwn as turmeric (CL) and Tectona grandis known as teak leaves (TG) from Abakaliki were extracted using aqueous and organic solvents: distilled water, methanol and chloroform. The residues of the different extraction solvents were labeled BN1A and BN2A for aqueous extracts; BN1C and BN2C for chloroform extracts and BN1M and BN2M for methanol extracts respectively. The Cucuma lunga extracts were labeled CLA, CLC and CLM for aqueous, chloroform and methanol solvents respectively while Tectonia grandis TGA, TGC and TGM extracts were labeled according to the solvent used in the extraction. These extracts were used in their crude form to dye cotton and polyester fabrics; the cotton was used as a natural fiber and the polyester was used as a synthetic fiber. The fabrics when were dyed with the extracts showed different colours but exhibited poor dyeing properties. These fabrics were mordanted with metals salts such as CuSO4, FeCl3, SnCl2 and K2Cr2O7 and dyed with fresh samples of the extracts. These mordanted fabrics showed different colours on the fabrics dyed and were fast to wash, alkali and acid.
Plants form an important part of life as human beings and animalsdepend on them for food, colourants, medicine, shelter and air1. The leaf, bark, roots andtwigs extracts of Baphia nitida ( red and yellow species ) are used in ethnomedicinein the treatment of constipation, skindisease, veneral disease, flatulence and smallpox2-3. The tubers of Cucuma lunga are used as eye wash, skindiseases, yellow fever,antimicrobials, carminative and antimalarial while thefruits, seeds and bark of of Tectona grandis are used locally totreat dyspepsia, headache, skin disease, astringent and toothache 4-8.
The utilization of Baphia nitida for skin care is common inNigeria especially the South Eastern part where women use the pulverized stembark to treat acne and pimples. In addition, turmeric powder is used for thesame purpose. Tectona grandis has been a good source of naphthaquinones 23.
Exactly 1500g of stems of Baphia nitida (red and yellow species) and yellow rhizomes of Curcuma lunga (tumeric) were sourced from a forest in Ikwo community of Abakakliki Ebonyi State, Nigeria respectively while 1300g of fresh green leaves of Tectona grandis (teak leaves) were collected from Amagu in Abakaliki metropolis of Ebonyi State. The samples were gathered in the month of June 2016.
Baphia nitida and Curcuma lunga samples were washed with distilled water to remove dirt and sun dried for 240 h. The fresh leaves of Tectona grandis was washed in distilled water and soaked in 2500 L methanol for 10 min to stop enzymatic reactions and dried at ambient temperature 240 h. These samples were pulverized separately and 100 g of each sample was taken and soaked in 500 mL of chloroform, methanol and distilled water and left to stand for 264 h respectively 23.
The solution mixtures ofthe samples were filtered and the filtrates evaporated to dryness on a sandbath to yield 43.55 g red Baphia nitida aqueous extract (BN1A) and5.58 g yellow Baphia nitida aqueousextract (BN2A). Also 9.21 g red Baphianitida chloroform extract (BN1C) and 9.24g yellow Baphia nitidachloroform extract (BN2C). For the methanol solvent; 14.57 g red Baphia nitida methanol extract (BN1M) and 25.65 g yellow Baphia nitida methanol extract (BN2M) respectively. The Cucuma lunga yields were 15.30 g aqueous extract (CLA), 3.06 g chloroform extract (CLC) and 32.45 gmethanol extract (CLM). The yields from the Tectoniagrandis were 39.61 g aqueous extract(TGA), 6.62 g chloroform extract (TGC) and 3.69 g methanol extract (TGM).All the samples were soluble in ethanol and sparingly soluble in water except Tectona grandis that was soluble in thetwo solvents.
Table I, it could beobserved that methanol was the best solvent for the extraction of theconstituents of CLM and BN2M while water was the best solvent for BN1A and TGA.Chloroform was not a good solvent for the extraction of the various extracts.The red colour of red baphia nitida showed a wavelength of maximum absorptionat a longer wavelength of 630-650 nm,the yellow extract at 600-612 nm in the electromagnetic spectrum. The greencolour of the Teak leaf showed absorption at 550 nm also in the visible region.These absorption maxima are the resultant effect of the degree of conjugation in the extracts24. The plant extracts gave varying colours whenunmordanted white cotton and polyester fabrics ( 5cm x 5cm) were dyed with thedifferent twelve plant extracts as could be seen in Table II, not all the plantdyes gave positive results. These different colours could be as a result ofsolvent effect and the nature of the fabric being dyed. The fastness propertiesof the unmordanted cotton and polyester gave very poor results on a scale of 0,1, 2 and 3, Table III. The fabrics showed very poor acid fastness, alkalinefastness and wash fastness. 041b061a72