Abstract:
The World Health Organization estimates that 80% of the world’s population presently uses herbal medicine for some aspect of primary health care. The use
of, and search for, drugs and dietary supplements derived from plants have accelerated in recent years.The genus Grewia is mainly associated with triterpenoids
and alkaloids. Various parts of the plants has been used to treat many diseases. In continuation of this, the work is being pursued on the phytochemical,
antimicrobial and antioxidant investigation on the leaves of Grewia optiva.Successive extraction of the crushed leaves of the plants has been done with various
solvents viz. petroleum ether, benzene, chloroform, acetone, methanol and water respectively. The different extracts of the leaves of Grewia optiva were
tested quantitatively. Some new phytoconstituents: Fats and fixed oils were found in Petroleum ether, benzene, chloroform, acetone, methanol and water
extract; Protein and amino acids were found in acetone, methanol and water extract and Saponins was found in methanol and water extract.These extracts were
further tested for their antimicrobial activity against the bacterial strains of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonaie., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus
mirabilis and against the fungal strains of Aspergillus niger, Microsporus gypseum, Rhizopus stolonifer, Aspergillus japanicus and Penicillum chrysogenum .The
results have shown that the all extracts showed very good activity against the bacterial strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and methanol extract can act as
standard drug against this strain as it showed more inhibition zone than the standard drug doxycycline. The extract showed very weak activity against all the
tested fungal strains.They showed no remarkable antioxidant activity in methanol and acetone extract.
