Muhammad Munawar Hayat et al., J.Chem.Soc.Pak., Vol. 37, No. 02, 2015 335 Phytochemical Evaluation of Farsetia hamiltonii Royle from Cholistan Desert 1 Muhammad Munawar Hayat*, 1 Muhammad Uzair, 1 Bashir Ahmed Chaudhary, 2 Faiz-Ul-Hassan Nasim, 2 Samina Ejaz, 2 Samia Rashid and 2 Shazia Anjum** 1 Faculty of Pharmacy, Bahauddin Zakaryia University Multan 60800, Pakistan. 2 Department of Chemistry,The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan. muhammadmunawarhayat@yahoo.com , anjumshazia@yahoo.com (Received on 22nd March 2014, accepted in revised form 22nd August 2014) Summary: Farsetia hamiltonii Royle was evaluated for biochemical analysis (moisture contents, ash value, crude fiber, nitrogen contents, crude proteins & lipids, acid & saponification value, iodine number, etc.), Photochemical analysis (secondary metabolites), total flavonoids and phenolic contents, and mineral analysis by different techniques. Qualitative analysis of crude lipids and proteins by TLC and paper chromatography of the plant was estimated. Gluaiacol-peroxidase, amylase and invertase activities were also performed. This is first detailed investigation report on Farsetia hamiltonii which provides guidelines regarding the isolation of bioactive compounds from the plant of therapeutic potential to protect humanity from diseases. Keywords: Biochemical analysis; Chromatographic analysis; Farsetia hamiltonii. Introduction Cholistan desert is situated in south west of Pakistan and the season of summer is very harsh, temperature touching to 51 o C or more sometimes. But perennial and drought resistant plants survive and adopt themselves against this punishing environmental condition. There are a large number of plants including about which 64 have been reported as medicinal [1]. Farsetia hamiltonii Royle (Brassicaceae) is a desert medicinal plant and is commonly used to treat various diseases by inhabitants of Cholistan desert. The plant is an annual shrub and often woody at base. The plant length is about 10-40 cm with densely appressed white hairs. The leaves are oblong linear and fruit is little longer, narrowed at either end, are distinctive. The root is thick woody and flower is white or pink colour, petals slightly longer than sepals and flowering season is March to September [2]. The distribution of this plant ranges from Pakistan, India and tropical Africa. The local name is “Fareed Booti” [3]. The plant is famous for its antirheumatic action and also as cooling medicine and tonic. To the best of our knowledge, there is no biochemical, phytochemical, spectroscopic, chromatographic and enzymatic work on this plant has been reported up till now. However, some species of genus Farsetia have worked out; F. aegyptia was investigated for cytotoxicity. Betulin, friedelin, β-amyrin, scopoletin and coumarin were isolated from low polar fraction and identified by spectral data [4]. Some flavonoids are reported from genus Farsetia; e.g; kaempferol and apigenin from the extracts of F. aegyptia [5]. Some glucosinolates were reported from the leaves of F. aegyptia and F. ramosissima [6]. F. aegyptia is evaluated for antibacterial and antifungal activities which showed maximum inhibition against Klebsiella pneumonia and no activity against Candida albicans. Kaempferol-7-8-diglucoside was isolated from F. aegyptia along with two other compounds kaempferol and quercetin [7]. Hence, folklore importance of F. hamiltonii prompted us to systematically investigate the potential of this plant in research and development endeavors. Experimental Reagents and Instrumentation Sodium hydroxide, silver chloride, silver nitrate, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, lithium chloride, HCl, HNO 3 , HClO 4 , KOH, BaCl 2 , NH 4 SCN, hydrogen peroxide, sodium dihydrogen phosphate, KH 2 PO 4 , folin ciocalteu reagent, vanadomolybdate reagent, quercetin, gallic acid, murexide, erichrome black T, ninhydrin, EDTA, gum acacia, dichloromethane, methanol, chloroform, DMSO, acetone, starch and sucrose were of analytical grade. The instruments atomic absorption spectrometer (Perkin Elmer analyst 100), synergy HT BioTek 96 microplate reader, rotary evaporator with vacuum pump (Buchi), TLC plates (20×20) Silica * To whom all correspondence should be addressed.