ABSTRACT
Rotula aquatica Lour is a small branched shrub that grows characteristically among rocks and trailing over gravel in stream beds. It belongs to the family Boraginaceae and widely distributed throughout India. It is commonly called as Pasanabheda. The present study was aimed to evaluate the total phenolics and in vitro antioxidant activity in root and leaf extracts of Rotula aquatica Lour. The dried roots and leaves were subjected to soxhlet extraction utilizing chloroform and methanol followed by preliminary qualitative phytochemical analysis. Total phenolic content was estimated by Folin-Ciocalteu method and in vitro antioxidant assays were performed using various radical scavenging activities viz. DPPH, superoxide anion, nitric oxide, hydroxyl and iron chelating activities at different concentrations. The results of the total phenolic content estimation was expressed in terms of equivalence with standard and the antioxidant potentiality of various scavenging and chelating activity were expressed in terms of IC50 values. The results showed that both root and leaves possess significant antioxidant activity even though the former was found to be superior than the latter in terms of parameters assessed. Further the methanol extracts were proved to be an ideal for the materials subjected to investigation.