Abstract
Plants are an ancient source of medicine due to presence of bioactive molecules of various compounds in their different parts. Convolvulus dorycnium plant belongs to the family of wind plants (convolvulaceae). The greatest variety of Convolvulus plants are broadly distributed over the world and was found in Western and Central Asia, Mediterranean, Macaronesia, East Africa and Arabia. The plant C. dorycnium was collected from Tarhuna in Sidi Said area of Libya in May 2013. Plants belonging to Convolvulus genus contain various phytochemicals profiles. The focus of this study is on the phytochemical analysis of convolvulus dorycnium including phytochemical screening, extraction, isolation and characterisation. The phytochemical screening reveals the presence of flavonoids, tannins, saponins, steroids, carbohydrate and coumarin in ethyl acetate and methanolic extract. Column chromatography and column chromatography and TLC were used to fractionate the ethyl acetate extract and H-NMR was used to elucidate the isolated compounds. Some compounds were isolated from the aerial parts of the plant; scopoletin, which is a phenolic coumarin (1) (7-hydroxy-6-methoxy coumarin), caffeic acid (2) (3,4-dihydroxycinnamic acid) and, ferrulic acid (3) (4-hydroxy-3-methoxy cinnamic acid) which are phenolic acids. The chemical constituents present in the extract have been reported to possess many biological activities.