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Medicinal Plant Research 2014, Vol.4, No.6, 46
-
54
http://mpr.biopublisher.ca
46
Research Report Open Access
Foeniculum vulgare
Mill. A Medicinal Herb
Musharaf Khan
1
, Shahana Musharaf
2
1. Department of Botany, Federal Government College Mardan, Pakistan
2. Government Girls Degree College Sheikh Maltoon, Mardan, Pakistan
Corresponding author email: k.musharaf@gmail.com;
Authors
Medicinal Plant Research, 2014, Vol.4, No.6 doi: 10.5376/mpr.2014.04.0006
Received: 24 Mar., 2014
Accepted: 11 Apr., 2014
Published: 24 Apr., 2014
Copyright
© 2014 Khan and Musharaf. This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Khan and Musharaf, 2014,
Foeniculum vulgare
Mill. A Medicinal Herb (A Review), Pakistan, Vol.4, No.6 46-54 (doi: 10.5376/mpr.2014.04. 0006)
Abstract
Foeniculum vulgare
.Mill. commonly known as Fennel belonging to the family Apiaceae, is a small, erect and aromatic
herb. A number of chemical constituents and various therapeutic effects of this herb have been reported by different workers.
Extensive investigations have been carried out on different parts of herb and as a consequence, varied classes of compounds
fatty
acids, hydrocarbons and sterols, Furocoumarins; (imperatorin, psoralen, bergapten, xanthotoxin and isopimpinellin), Flavonoids;
(isorhamnetin 3-O-α-rhamnoside, quercetin and kaempferol) and quercetin; (3-O-rutinoside, kaempferol 3-O-rutinoside and quercetin
3-O- β-glucoside) have been isolated
.
So, it has been used in ethnomedicine to exploit its medicinal properties including antioxidant,
anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antifungal, antibacterial, antinociceptive, anti-inflammatory and antiviral activities. The presented
review summarizes the information about the ethnopharmacology, toxicity, phytochemistry and biological activity of
F. vulgare
.
Keywords
Foeniculum vulgare
; Phytochemistry; Biological; Ethnomedicine evaluations
Background
Foeniculum vulgare
belongs to the family Apiaceae
and locally known as saunf is an annual, biennial or
perennial aromatic herb, depending on the variety,
which has been known since antiquity in Europe and
Asia Minor. The leaves, stalks and seeds (fruits) of the
plant are edible. The plant is an aromatic herb whose
fruits are oblong, ellipsoid or cylindrical, straight or
slightly curved, greenish or yellowish brown in colour.
Each fruit weighs between 6 and 7 mg, has
conspicuous vittae, is about 6 mm long and 2 mm
wide in central portion. It is grown almost all over the
world both as an ornamental and as a seed crop. It can
be grown on marginal land and is considered tolerant
to various insect pests and diseases. It is well known
for having medicinal properties and it is specially used
as a remedy measure for flatulence. Although the
fennel crop in Pakistan is not grown on commercial
scale, yet on account of its medicinal value, the
farmers almost all over Pakistan grow on a small scale
for their domestic use only. The produce obtained
from such small scale cultivation is not sufficient to
meet the country requirements and to meet the gap
between production and demand (Ayub et al., 2008).
F.
vulgare
grows wildly in the Mediterranean coastal
strip, Egypt (Tackholm, l974). Throughout China it is
cultivated and adventive; 200~2600 m. (native to the
Mediterranean region; cultivated and adventive
worldwide) (Hui xiang, 2005). It has been widely used
as a folk remedy by the native people for treatment of
various inflammatory ailments. Chemically, Foeniculum
species are characterized by the presence of essential
oils (Ozbek et al., 2003), sterols (Ivanov et al., 1979),
coumarins (El-Khrisy et al., 1980; Kwon et al., 2002)
and flavonoids (Kunzemann et al., 1977; Parejo et al.,
2004). Certain bioactivities have been attributed to
some Foeniculum species; viz, antioxidant and
antimicrobial activities for
F. vulgare
Mill. aerial parts
(Ruberto et al., 2000), anti-inflammatory and
analgesic activities for the fruits of the same plant
(Eun and Jae, 2004). Volatiles reported from the fruits
of
F. vulgare
comprise anethol, methyl chavicol,
fenchone and limonene (Muckensturm et al., 1997), as
well as piperitenone and piperitenone oxi-de (Badoc et
al., 1994). Chlorogenic acid (Ishikawa et al., 1999),
caffeic acid and cynarin (Scarpati, 1957) have also
been isolated from the plant. Much work has recently
been done on the yield and composition of both
extracts and volatile oils of fennel of several varieties
from several locations (Akgül and Bayrak, 1988;
Arslan et al., 1989; Embong et al., 1977; Katsiotis,
1988; Miura et al., 1986; Venskutonis et al., 1996;