Comparative Pharmacognostic study of market samples of Tagara collected from five different markets of Kerala with the official source plant Valeriana jatamansi Jones ex Roxb.

Abstract

Background: Tagara is a very popular Ayurveda herb used in the treatment insomnia, epilepsy, neurosis, hepatoprotective, anticancerous, and analgesic. Characteristic smell is the typical feature of it. As per the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India and many other classical texts, rhizomes of Valeriana jatamansi of the family Valerianceae is the accepted source of the drug. From some of the reports from early 1980s, it was found that roots of some aquatic plants such as Nymphoides macrospermum, Nymphoides hydrophylla, Nymphoides indica, and Limnanthemum cristatum were said to be used as Tagara instead of V. jatamansi in the South Indian markets.

Aim: This study proposed to assess the present status of Tagara available in herbal raw drug markets of Kerala.

Materials and methods: Five market samples of Tagara were collected from selected markets of Kerala, and some of the reported aquatic plants, collected from natural habitats nearby. Macroscopic, microscopic, histochemical, and powder microscopic characterization of all these samples were done as per the standard procedure mentioned in Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India and characters observed were compared with official source plant and pharmacopoeial standard.

Results: Morphological characters of market samples of Tagara collected from the various markets of Kerala were not matching with the rhizomes of genuine drug V. jatamansi and that of Uttarakhand sample. The microscopic and histochemical examination also gave the same result. However, these samples showed similarities with the roots of Nymphoides macrospermam. Sample collected from Uttarakhand was the rhizome of V. jatamansi.

Conclusion: The collected market samples of Tagara from various Kerala markets were not the rhizomes of V. jatamansi but the roots of N. macrospermam.