NIGERIAN JOURNAL OF FORESTRY
Micromorphology Microchemical and Evaluation of Garcinia Kola and Garcinia Gerrardii
Omolola, T. O. and Lawal, I. O. (2020) Nigerian Journal of Forestry, 50 (1) 27-42

The use of medicinal plants as alternative and complementary medicine is gaining more grounds on a daily basis globally. Thus, this study is aimed at delimiting Garcina kola and Garcinia gerrardii leaves who are both members of the same genus and family by evaluating the fresh, powdered and anatomical sections of the leaves using standard procedures for the macromorphological, microscopy (quantity and quality), chemomicroscopic profiles. The result obtained for the unaided observation shows that both plant species look extremely similar with opposite leaf arrangement, ovate leaf shape, entire leaf margin and cuspidate apex but differ in the leaf size and stalk with G.gerrardii having bigger leaves and angular stalk while G.kola has smaller leaves and rounded leaf stalk. Qualitative microscopy revealed that G.kola cells are irregular shaped with wavy, undulating anticlinal walls while G.gerrardii has irregular shaped cells with straight anticlinal walls. Stomata was only found on the abaxial layers of both species with the same stomata type (paracytic). Also, trichomes were found absent in both layers of the two (2) plant species. Quantitative study shows Stomata index (13.35%, 6.54%) for the abaxial surfaces of G.kola and G, grerrardii respectively. G.kola gave a mean cell length of (61.60 μm, 58.72 μm ) while G. gerrardii has a mean cell length of (30.29 μm, 31.40 μm ) on both abaxial and adaxial surfaces. However, there is an issue with identification of some of these plants particularly for those ones that belong in the same genus and family. Therefore, there is a need to establish a standard profile for these plants in order to achieve proper identification Information obtained from this work can be used as good indicators and standards for the examined plant species which can serve as reference in herbal pharmacopoeias.