Antimicrobial Activity of Some Egyptian Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Waste Extracts

摘要

Acomparative study on the antimicrobial activity of some medicinal and aromatic plant wastes was done on a number of bacterial and fungal strains adopting the disc-diffusion assay. Thirty extracts from Allium sativum L., Cympopogon sp., Nigella sativa L., Ocimum basilicum L. and Thymus basilium were evaluated. Thymus basilium possessed the highest antimicrobial effect followed by Nigella sativa L., with respective average inhibition zone diameters of 4.7 and 3.8 mm. Fungal candidates were inhibited by plant extracts to higher extents as compared to bacterial strains, (inhibition zones measured were 5.9 mm for the former and 3 mm for the latter). No remarkable variations were observed among the two methods used for extraction. The phytochemical screening of plant waste extracts indicated the presence of carbohydrates, tannins, alkaloids, flavonoids, sterols, saponins and coumarins.