Abstract
Botanical identification is necessary to ensure efficacy and minimize any possible toxicity and may help in identifying possible contaminants. The identification of drug botanicals differs from that of living plants since the botanical is usually in a dried form and may also have been subjected to other processing procedures. Other factors which may present problems in identification are the loss of cellular material during preparation, intraspecific variation which exists in plants, and the methods by which features can be accurately described and understood by nonspecialists.
Botanicals are identified mainly on their visual appearance either with the naked eye or microscopically. Such descriptions consist of verbal, drawn, or photographed features and a possible future development is the use of computer imaging. Other organoleptic characters such as taste and odor can be developed to give a high degree of accurate identification by individuals with long experience; however, such expertise is very difficult to transmit in a written form. The other major set of identification procedures relies on the detection of specific chemical substances in the drug in question. Thin layer chromatography is the most useful technique now used.
Authentic specimens of botanicals should exist in collections which would be available for comparison with samples. These collections can be of living material or of preserved specimens such as herbaria used by botanists. Ideally, the preserved specimens should be in the form encountered commercially.
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