Pharmacognostical Exploration of Saccharum officinarum

The selection proper raw materials in the production of herbal formulation standardization plays essential role. Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) is the most exclusively cultivated and India is the second largest producer country next to Brazil. It has been used as a sweetening agent for past era and also chiefly in the form of refined sugar. The present study was focused on preliminary pharmacognostic and phytochemical investigations for determining and establishing the identity, purity and quality of the plants. This will provide with an appropriate guidance for future exploration. The plant was subjected to determination of various physicochemical parameters including ash values (total ash, water soluble ash) and extractive values (alcohol soluble extractive, water soluble extractive). The powdered crude drug was extracted successively with various solvents with increasing polarity and further the extracts were subjected to phytochemical screening for the identification of various phytoconstituents. More over the fingerprint profile of Saccharum officinarum was established using thin layer chromatography (TLC) methods. The results of the TLC profiling of the extract confirm about the presence of various phytochemicals.