Available Online through www.ijpbs.com (or) www.ijpbsonline.com IJPBS |Volume 3| Issue 3 |JUL-SEP|2013|46-52 Research Article Biological Sciences International Journal of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences (e-ISSN: 2230-7605) T ANTHONEY SWAMY* et al Int J Pharm Bio Sci www.ijpbs.com or www.ijpbsonline.com Page46 PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF VERNONIA ADOENSIS LEAVES AND ROOTS USED AS A TRADITIONAL MEDICINAL PLANT IN KENYA T ANTHONEY SWAMY 1 , JACKIE OBEY 2 AND NGULE CHRISPUS MUTUKU 3 1 & 3 Department of Chemistry, University of Eastern Africa Baraton, P.O. Box 2500, Eldoret -30100, Kenya. 3 Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, University of Eastern, Baraton, P.O. Box 2500, Eldoret – 30100, Kenya. *Corresponding Author Email: drtanthony2011@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Medicinal plants play an important role in the treatment of various sicknesses in Kenya and the whole world. Vernonia adoensis is one of such plants used traditionally in Kenya to treat illness such as gonorrhea. The main aim of conducting this study was to analyze the photochemical composition of the plant. From this study, phenols, saponnins, flavonoids, glycosides, tannins were found on both roots and leaves of the plant, while alkaloids and terpenoids were found on the leaves but absent in the roots. Anthroquinones were found to be absent on leaves and roots of the plant. KEY WORDS Vernonia Adoensis, Phytochemical, Medicinal herbs INTRODUCTION The use of medicinal plants to treat diseases is as old as man. Medicinal plants have been used since ancient times to treat many illnesses. The importance of these plants lies on certain chemical components of the plants which are known as phytochemicals. Mir (2013). Research has shown that the concentration of these compounds in plants is directly related to their capability to treat certain illness. Many of these non- nutritive secondary metabolites are found in plants which are even used for food. According to Cousins (2002) over 80% of the plants in Nigeria are used for treatment of malaria and other sicknesses are also used as food, there seem to be no much distinction between medicinal benefits of plants and there nutritive value. The published WHO traditional strategy addressed the issues and provided a framework for countries to develop policies to govern medicinal plants use. The strategy put forward by WHO advocates the formulation of a policy by states as the first component of developing traditional medicine, India is one of the few countries which has started to develop such policies (Prajapati, 2003). Over past few years much research has being done and is still going on to prove scientifically the plants nutritional value and medicinal value. A good number of chemical compounds have being discovered from plants and found to have pharmacological value, this has lead to the development of over 25% of all the artificial medicines used today. Many of the traditional medicinal plants species used all over the world have being found to have great pharmacological value. Studies carried out throughout Africa confirm that indigenous plants are the main constituents of traditional African medicines. Over 80% of the people in developing countries use medicinal plants to treat the illnesses which affect them in daily basis (Ganga, 2012).This can be attributed to poverty in these countries which has lead to inefficient health care system in hospitals and inadequate resources to access these facilities. People in these countries look for cheap and available medicines which are known traditionally to cure the illnesses. The use of herbal medicines in the western world is steadily growing with 40% of the population