Wood Anatomical Study of Osyris quadripartita Salz.ex Decne (African Sandalwood) from the Northern Western Ghats, India

Abstract

The family Santalaceae is medicinally important. Osyris quadripartita Salz.ex Decne has been used for the medicinal use such as anthelmintic, leishmaniasis like leprosy diseases, abnormalities, kidney disease, forage, hygienic/perfuming, eye pain, cold, anaphylactic shock, epilepsy, circumcision wound, toothache, tonsillitis, abdominal pain, urine problem, breast cancer, mental problems and anti-coronavirus disease, etc. It has also been reported for its activities such as anti-ulcer activity, antiviral activity. Santalum album and O. quadripartita belong to the same family santalaceae and have many similarities in their morphological characteristics. Both plant species belong to the same family, that’s why anatomical character help to resolve this problem and easy to distinguish most wood anatomical characteristics. Therefore, distinguishing onefrom the other anatomically is very easy. A study has been carried out to authenticate the identity of this specie based on anatomical characters. The anatomical sections of stem (Transverse Section (TS), Transvers Longitudinal Section (TLS) and Radial Longitudinal Section (RLS) of the species were observed under the bright-field compound binocular microscope, and characters were documented. The aim of the study is to elucidate the means and criteria to identify the anatomical structure of O. quadripartita. Though the diagrammatic outline of the stem sections is similar, detailed anatomical characters are significantly different. The characters such as the arrangement of cortical tissues, pericyclicfibres, phloem fibers, andphloem rays are useful in differentiating the stem and petiole of the species. Wood anatomical characteristics of O.quadripartita were seriation of rays, type of crystalliferous cells, and abundance of extractives. Ray cells frequently contain rhomboidal crystals. In cortex, and pith region of the stem observed solitary crystals. Based on the preliminary study, the species can be differentiated from other species of the same family based only on anatomical characters.