International Journal of Horticulture, 2017, Vol.7, No. 4, 26-32
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As described in ancient literature, the use of edible flowers for dish preparation has been an atavistic custom.
Besides their use for fresh consumption and garnishing, edible flowers can also be consumed dried, in cocktails,
canned in sugars and preserved in distillated etc. (Neugtebauerova and Vabkova, 2009). Thus a drift towards
natural sources for mitigating these problems has gradually come into vogue. The usage of plants in the system of
medicine as antimicrobial, antiseptic and as cure for infection and sores (Bungihan and Matias, 2013), is widely
accepted by nearly 80 percent of the people throughout the world. Hence, research of indentifying specific plants
for their bioactivity and bio efficiency, is being conducted widely. However, the toxicity of the flower extracts
with high antioxidant activity needs to be tested, so as to determine the daily intake limits (Kaisoon et al., 2011).
Generally, flowers are nearly neglected or rarely studied for their biological properties. Thus analyses for the
presence of these considerable secondary metabolites, antioxidants and anti-bacterial profiles of ornaments plants
is worthwhile for the establishment of their potentials as nutraceutical, cosmeceutical and pharmaceutical
ingredient / additive (Bungihan and Matias, 2013). Keeping in view the importance of Phytochemicals, the present
study was planned to examine and extract various Phytochemicals viz. lycopene, phenols, caroteniods etc. present
in flowers crops grown under Indian condition and their antioxidant potential with specific Phytochemicals
composition. In this study, a total of 14 flowering species, grown locally, were evaluated for their antioxidant
potency and phytoconstituents.
2 Materials and Methods
2.1 Basic experimental material and laboratory analysis
Flower samples belonging to 14 different genera were collected fresh from the common plant present and grown
in and around Katrain region of H.P. (India). The collected samples were carries to the lab within a maximum of 6
hours for experimentation. Their names are present in Table 1. True to type representative samples from, each
replication were collected at appropriate stages of harvesting. These were chopped, homogenized and a fresh
sample of 5 g of each was stored immediately under refrigerated conditions (-20°C) until assay. The 5 g sample
was further homogenized in 15 ml absolute ethanol to prepare the ethanol extract, which was further centrifuged
at 10,000 rpm for 15 mins at 4 degree to obtain the supernatant, which is then stored at -20°C.
Table 1 Mean performance of different edible flower crops for different quality traits
Sr. No.
Crop
CUPRAC
FRAP
Phenols
Lycopene
Total carotenoids β-Carotene
1.
Calendula yellow
12.02
1.06
1205.91
21.85
37.83
6.98
2.
Candula orange
12.26
0.88
973.59
41.94
66.64
10.79
3.
Poppy
8.75
2.07
1726.33
28.06
54.22
7.80
4.
Vinca red
32.33
1.39
1559.29
28.29
30.36
6.56
5.
Vinca pink
30.46
2.07
2041.95
20.70
16.85
4.40
6.
Coriopsis
27.48
1.10
2208.30
14.93
25.63
10.97
7.
Morning glory
15.53
1.28
1404.59
3.32
3.24
4.09
8.
Shoe flwoer
19.21
1.26
1300.82
4.09
4.19
5.38
9.
Mirabilis
23.07
0.78
2079.72
2.78
4.43
5.64
10.
Coriopsis 411
8.56
0.96
1742.85
7.64
18.11
7.83
11.
Ghomprina
4.98
0.37
1590.21
0.55
5.45
6.99
12.
Salvia blue
7.35
0.42
1581.28
0.69
7.46
9.66
13.
Wild salvia
5.93
0.22
1804.05
0.65
5.83
7.50
14.
Pusa Narangi
C.D.
(0.05)
10.80
0.42
0.71
0.05
2282.54
0.48
16.32
0.08
13.45
0.10
5.83
0.11
±SE(d)
0.20
0.02
0.23
0.04
0.05
0.06
C.V. (%)
1.58
2.85
0.02
0.35
0.30
0.94
2.2 Antioxidant capacities and total phenolic assay
Measuring the antioxidant activity / capacity level of plants is carried out for the meaningful comparison of the
antioxidant content of several plants. The parent CUPRAC (Cupric Reducing Antioxidant Capacity) method of
