Pharmacognostical, phytochemical and biological evaluations of the stem bark of bombax ceiba linn. [semul]

Bombax ceiba Linn. [Semul], a tall deciduous tree is a very common medicinal plant used for the treatment of various ailments. The present paper deals with the standardization of its stem bark on the basis of various pharmacognostical parameters. A new compound BC-1 has been isolated as colourless crystals from the ethanolic extract of the air-dried stem bark of Bombax ceiba Linn. Its structure has been elucidated as lup-20 [29] cn-beta-ol through extensive spectroscopic methods [IR, UV, MS, [1]H-NMR and [13]C-NMR]. The aqueous extract of this bark showed antimicrobial and antifungal activity