7. ABSTRACT OF THE INVENTION The history of the peoples of the world cannot be imagined without studying the plants used as medicines, as the use of medicinal herbs is as ancient as man. The first written proofs of the plants used in medicine are to be found in mythology, in the Bible itself. By considering the scope of these medicinal plants we have to use more amounts of time and resources into developing medicines by medicinal plants. If we can come back to our nature, culture and tradition on use of medicinal plants it can bring up a bright and healthy new generation, Sphenoclea Zeylanica commonly called as Nandu Kannu in Tamil is an important medicinal herb as all the parts of the plant possess nutritional and medicinal properties however there is no report documenting the screening of the bioactive compounds in the successive extracts of the plant (leaves , flowers and roots)of Sphenoclea Zeylanica using varying polarities in sucession the aim of the present study to conduct preliminary phytochemical analysis, separation , purification and identification of many different constituents present in plants.
