Pharmacogonostical Study On Leaf And Petiole Of Rheum Officinale Baill

As a common Chinese herb, Rhubarb is the root and rhizome of Rheum palmatum L.or R. tanguticum Maxim ex Balf., or R. officinale Baill.(Family Polygonaceae). The Medicinal Rhubarb is mainly produced in Sichuan and named South Rhubarb.The traditional medicinal part of Rhubarb is the root and rhizome. So every year a mount of leaves and petiole were been discarded during their growth. Althoug the leaf and petiole doesn t belong to the medicinal part they usually used to treat animal s diseases by the local people. And in the Zang ethnic medicine theory they can elimate Pei-Gen cold symptom and treat many kinds of diseases. Through modern research we find that the unmedicinal part of many Chinese meteria medicas contain similar active components to the medicinal part.To utilize the definite Chinese medicine sufficiently and effectively the sysmetic morphological, histological, chemical and pharmacological study on the leaf and petiole of R. officinale Baill. have been perfomed for the first time. The result showed that the leaf and petiole of R. officinale Baill. could be identified through characteristic and microscopic character, especially the shape of leaf margin .smell and glandular scale, stoma and three leaf microscopic indexes(stomatal index, palisade ratio, vein-islet number). The leaf and petiole of R. officinale Baill. both contain anthraquinones, tannins and flavonoids. Through the comparative study on the content of two kinds of Medicinal Rhubarb that one were collected 1~2 leaves and petioles and another not we found that collecting 1~2 leaves and petioles have no effect on the major components during the growth of R. officinale Baill. .Casein method have been established to determinate the content of tannins in the leaf of R. officinale Baill. and HPLC method to determinate the content of anthraquinones in the leaf and petiole of Rheum officinale Baill. . And the dynamic change's of the content were investigated ,the result showed that the changes of anthraquinone and tanninsand were crosscurrent. Through the acute toxicity test we found that the leaf and petiole were notoxic. The leaves and petioles of R. officinale Baill. have obvious catharsis function on the nomal and self stool solid heat model mice, and the function was similar to Medicinal Rhubarb. The leaves and petioles of R. officinale Baill. both have marked hemostatic effect and the effect of petioles low dose group was the most obvious and similar or a little better than positive group and Medicinal Rhubarb group. Only petiole have similar anti-inflamatory effect to Medicinal Rhubarb.