A Pharmacognostical Comparative Investigation on Valeriana alliariifolia Adams.

Free radicals are shown as the main reason of many chronic and degenerative diseases. Because of the toxicity and undesirable effects of synthetic antioxidants, finding of new antioxidant natural agents is very important, especially edible plants. As an edible plant, valerian is used for various aims. Also, Valeriana species are known with their antioxidative compounds. In our previous study, some biological activities of Valeriana alliariifolia Adams roots extracts, collected in 2012, and the chemical compositions of active samples were determined. For this study, after 5 years collected plant materials were investigated again to determine and compare the antioxidant activities, the total phenolic contents and the chemical composition profile of the extracts from different plant-parts and to compare obtained results with the previous data. While RWI, RWM1 and RWM1residue were found most active by DPPH method and AHM1 by FRAP method, REM1 showed the highest activity by CUPRAC method. The high activity of AHM1 is parallel to its phenolic content. It can be thought that the difference between the results of our two studies, is due to the change of plant content from year to year and various environmental factors. This is important for achieving standardization in the production of its preparations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]