www.ijcrt.org © 2022 IJCRT | Volume 10, Issue 9 September 2022 | ISSN: 2320-2882 IJCRT2209082 International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT) www.ijcrt.org a574 Pharmacognostic studies and quality control parameters of Euphorbia neriifolia L. 1 Sonali Sajwan, 2 S. A. Ansari, 3 A. S. Khan 1 Assistant research officer, 2 Research officer, 3 Research officer, Department of Botany, Drug Standardization Research Institute, (Under CCRUM, Ministry of AYUSH., Govt. of India), PCIM & H Campus, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad, U.P., India. Abstract: In present scenario, the growing demand of herbal medicines has created a huge challenge to standardize herbal materials extensively at rapid pace. To establish quality control parameters of a locally occurring medicinal plant, Euphorbia neriifolia is utilized as folk medicine in traditional system of medicine. In tremendous diverse world of medicinal plants, E. neriifolia is one of the important plants which contains remarkable medicinal values and is generally used as an effective herbal drug in several ailments such as rheumatism, sciatica, bronchitis, leucoderma. It has been a part of various traditional systems of medicine from the time immemorial. In classical literature of Unani medicine, a number of its varieties are mentioned like danda thuhar, nadhra thuhar, chaudhara thuhar, unglia thuhar and nagfani thuhar. The drug was taken for evaluation through various scientific parameters viz. macro and microscopical studies, physico-chemical analysis and HPTLC fingerprinting. The drug was also analysed for detection of heavy metals, pesticide residues, microbial load and aflatoxins to ensure its safety and efficacy. The data presented in the present study can be helpful in developing pharmacopoeial standards of E. neriifolia stem. Index Terms - Aflatoxins, HPTLC fingerprinting, Microbial load, Pesticide residues, Physico-chemical analysis 1. INTRODUCTION The drug consists of fresh thorny stem pieces of Euphorbia neriifolia L. commonly known as ‘Thuhar’ belongs to Euphorbiaceae family. This plant is a large branched erect, glabrous, succulent xerophytic shrub reaching upto 6.5 m. this plant commonly found in wildly on rocky places throughout central India (Fig-A-B). It is a cactus like plant originated from South Asia and normally grows around dry, rocky and hilly areas of India, in Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia. Besides, this is herbal drug origin plant, which has been a part of traditional healthcare in most parts of the world since thousands of years. The specific name of neriifolia means ‘Leaves like an oleander’. The genus Euphorbia has more than 1500 species are widely distributed in the world ranging from annual wee ds to trees. Generally, E. neriifolia is an herb covering full of spine and popularly known as ‘Sehund’ or Thuhar’. It is also called milk hedge in English. Whereas, in Unani classical literature there are many variety of thuhar is mentioned such as danda thuhar, nadhara thuhar, chaudhara thuhar, unglia thuhar, nagfhani thuhar etc. E. neriifolia contain plenty of latex having purgetive, diuretic, antiasthamatic, expectorant properties. Due to its diverse medicinal properties it is used in cure of many disorders like ascites, polyuria, scabies, and ulcers in traditional system of medicine. Furthermore, the milky juice exudate from injured fleshy stem is commonly used in Ayurveda medicine as drastic cathartic and to relieve earache. Stem is roasted in ashes and the juice with honey and borex is given in small doses to promote expectoration of phlegm. Pulp of the stem mixed with ginger is used to prevent hydrophobia. Also, traditional use of E. neriifolia for curing many diseases has a long history as effectively been employed for the treatment of various ailments like hudar (rheumatism), irqunnisa (sciatica), niqrous (gout), warm-e-shobatein (bronchitis), warm-e-tihal, waja-ul-uzn (otalgia), iltehab (inflammatory conditions), zeeq-un-nafs (asthma), bars (leucoderma) etc. [1,6, 10,11,12,14,15]. Now a days, application of herbal drugs has been increased manifolds in last few decades not yet only in Asian countries but also in other parts of the world. In the early 20th century, there was limited scientific data available on herbal drugs. Later on, the standardization of plant material or crude drugs became an essential practice to check their purity and authenticity. Given this, a number of modern tools and techniques are employed for standardization of herbal drugs. Therefore, the present study was aims to develop quality parameters and evaluate the data to lay down the pharmacopoeial standards specially for Thuhar stem. Besides this, many conventional parameters such as macroscopy, microscopy, powder study, physico-chemical evaluations (i.e. water and alcohol soluble extractives, total ash, acid insoluble ash, pH values) along with HPTLC fingerprinting were carried out. The quality control parameters such as heavy metals estimation, pesticide estimation, microbial load and aflatoxins were also analysed in order to assess the quality of single drug. [17, 18]