ABSTRACT:
As medicinal plants known for their importance in different uses especially pharmaceutical usage due to presence of the active compounds represented by terpens, phenols, alkaloids…etc. and one of these important medicinal plants is our plant under study which is Cymbopogon citratus locally known as lemon grass that belongs to a Poaceae family. It is an aromatic tropical perennial herb, known in Egypt, Arabian Peninsula and North and West tropical Africa. In this study lemon grass was collected from Baghdad Province Al-Yarmuk area then extracted in two ways; first one was soxhlet extraction method so we got an alcoholic extract and identify the chemical compounds found in it by using general tests which shown the presence of alkaloids, phenols, tannins and flavonoids while cardiac glycosides and saponins were absent; and the other method was hydrodistillation by using Clevenger apparatus and the sample was identified using GC-Mass which revealed the presence of the following compounds((E)-3(10)-Caren-4-ol.7,7-Dimethyl-4-methylenebicyclo[4.1.0]heptan-3-o and its percentage in plant sample was 15.07% and the other compound (2,6-Octadienal, 3,7-dimethyl-, (E)- .alpha.-Citral (E)-Citral. trans-Citral trans-3,7-Dimethyl-2,6-octadienal) with percentage 42.27%. We can separate some pure phytopharmaceutical, which in turn can be used as lead molecule for producing the novel agent having good therapeutic activity. This study was conducted to determine the phytoconstituents presents in Cymbopogon citratus plant collected from Baghdad Province Al-Yarmuk area.