~ 147 ~ International Journal of Chemical Studies 2017; 5(3): 147-149 P-ISSN: 2349–8528 E-ISSN: 2321–4902 IJCS 2017; 5(3): 147-149 © 2017 JEZS Received: 05-03-2017 Accepted: 06-04-2017 Seema Sharma Deptt. Of Forests Products, University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Yash Pal Sharma Deptt. Of Forests Products, University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Pancy Thakur Deptt. Of Forests Products, University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Correspondence Seema Sharma Deptt. Of Forests Products, University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Quantification of colchicine in different parts of Gloriosa superba L Seema Sharma, Yash Pal Sharma and Pancy Thakur Abstract Gloriosa superba - a perennial climber and an important medicinal plant is used to cure diseases like gout, rheumatism, arthritis, ulcers and have properties like anthelmintic, purgative, abortifacient, antipyretic etc. The medicinal value of the plant is mainly due to the presence of alkaloids in all the parts of plant mainly colchicine which is an amino alkaloid derived from derived from two amino acids phenylalanine and trynosine present in it. In the present study colchicine, a major alkaloid of Gloriosa superba was quantified in different parts of plants gown at sub- temperate climate by using HPLC-UV. The seeds were found to contain the highest content of colchicine when compared to other parts under study. The colchicine content ranged from 0.051-0.695 %. The other parts studied were tubers, stems and leaves. The colchicine was detected in all four parts of the plant. Keywords: Medicinal; alkaloid; colchicine; Gloriosa superba; quantification; HPLC-UV 1. Introduction Gloriosa superba L. (Liliaceae) commonly known as ‘Kalihari’ in Hindi, ‘Malabar Glory Lily’ in English and also the trade name as ‘Glory Lily’ (Ambasta, 1986; Pulliah, 2002) [13, 14] . It is the National flower of Zimbabwe and also, state flower of Tamil Naidu (Kumar et al., 2015) [3] . Gloriosa superba is native of tropical Africa and now growing naturally in several parts of tropical Asia as in India, Myanmar, Malaysia and Srilanka (Jayaweera, 1982; Ade & Rai, 2009) [4, 9] . The medicinal value of the plant is mainly due to the presence of alkaloids in all the parts of plant mainly colchicine which is an amino alkaloid derived from derived from two amino acids phenylalanine and trynosine present in it (Sivakumar et al., 2004) [5] . Plant is also reported to be used for treating cholera, typhus, Bright’s disease, piles, skin diseases, leprosy, gonorrhoea and chronic ulcers by different authors (Chopra et al., 1956; Gupta 1982) [10] . Rootstock is useful in treatment of intestinal worms, bruises, infertility and impotence. Tubers are used in vitiated conditions of kapha and vata. Plants also show medicinal properties like antibacterial, germicidal, antimalarial etc. (Jana and Shekhawat, 2011) [12] . The plant has been reported to be used in the treatment of gout, arthritis (Anonymous, 1956) [1] , rheumatism (Nadkarni, 1996) [7] and cancer (Chopra et al., 1956) [10] . Due to over-exploitation of this species, this plant has been entered in Red Data Book (Badola, 2002) [2] . 2. Experimental 2.1 Plant material Plants of Gloriosa superba were collected from field grown plants at Botanical Garden of Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan (Himachal Pradesh, India) which is situated at 1250m altitude, 30˚51'35.85'' N latitude and 77˚10'22.66'' E longitude. Different parts of plants i.e. seeds, tubers, leaves, stems were separated and shade dried. 2.3 Preparation of material for extraction Shade dried plant parts were grinded mechanically and sieved by mesh size 800 microns sieve to form the uniform part icle size of the plant material, which was used for quantification of colchicine in the samples. 2.4 Determination of colchicine in plant material The samples (2 gram each) of different plant parts were extracted by soxhlet with methanol for 2 hours duration. After extraction, solvent from each sample was distilled off and the residue was completely dried to constant weight was then subjected to