Antimicrobial activity of some Egyptian medicinal and aromatic plant waste extracts

ABSTRACT

A comparative study on the antimicrobial activity of some medicinal and aromatic plant wastes was done on a number of bacterial and fungal strains adopting the discdiffusion assay. Thirty extracts from Allium sativum L., Cympopogon sp., Nigella satival l., Ocimum basilicum L. and Thymus basilium were evaluated. Thymus basilium possessed the highest antimicrobial effect followed by Nigella sativa L., with respective average inhibition zone diameters of 4.7 and 3.8 mm. Fungal candidates were inhibited by plant extracts to higher extents as compared to bacterial strains, [inhibition zones measured were 5.9 mm for the former and 3 mm for the latter]. No remarkable variations were observed among the two methods used for extraction. The photochemical screening of plant waste extracts indicated the presence of carbohydrates, tannins, alkaloids, flavonoids, sterols, saponins and coumarins