ABSTRACT
Microscopy of the gum revealed various shapes and sizes which disintegrated within a short time (3-5 minutes). They have thick walls, somewhat cracked and striated and also seen as translucent masses. Some were observed to have open fissures. However, the purified ones obtained from the precipitates depicted no open fissures, striations or cracks. Macroscopy revealed that A.occidentale gum has irregular shapes, tasteless, odourless, very coarse texture for the crude to fine coarse for the purified gum. It is yellowish brown colour for the crude to whitish milk for the purified gum. On the other hand, the gum arabic has a bland mucilaginous taste, odourless, varying shapes and sizes with a milky colour. This shows that the plant gum has features similar to available pharmaceutical gums and as such a viable pharmaceutical material and also these features are useful for the preparation of monograph of the plant. Paper and Thin Layer Chromatographic analyses of the carbohydrates in both the gums revealed the presence of sugars such as xylose, arabinose, galactose and glucose. Butanol-Acetic acid- Water (BAW) 4:1:5; Butanol-Ethanol-Water (BEW) 4:1:2.2; and Butanol-Acetic acid-Ether-Water (BAEW) 9:6:3:1 were used as solvents systems by ascending technique and sprayed with Aniline phthalate for visualization.