Screening of some indigenous herbal dyes for use in plant histological staining

Abstract

The efficacies of some indigenous herbal dyes for use in staining plant materials were examined to obtain non-toxic, eco-friendly and cheap stains for use in plant histology. Dye extracts from Bixa orellana, Curcuma domestica, Lonchocarpus cyanescens and Pterocarpus osun were used to stain wood sections using the existing standard staining procedures with little modification. All the extracts had affinity for the fibre and vessel elements except the extract from L. cyanescens. The extracts from C. domestica and B. orellana had higher selectivity than those of P. osun for fibre. From the results of the absorbance curves, each of the dye extracts from all speciese had minimum of two peaks, indicating that they had two or more colour imparting chromophores except dye extract from C. domestica. All the dye extracts were acidic with pH range of 3.77 to 6.77. Therefore, this study shows that dye extracts from B. orellana, C. domestica and P. osun could be solitarily or in combination with artificial dyes for plant histological staining.

Keywords

herbal dyes / indigenous herbs / ecofriendly stains / histological staining / wood sections

References

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