Author(s)

Marcos Schleiden Sousa Carvalho¹, Maria das Graças Cardoso^2*, Luciane Vilela Resende¹, Marcos de Souza Gomes³, Luiz Roberto Marques Albuquerque², Anni Cristini Silvestri Gomes², Thaís Aparecida Sales², Karen Caroline Camargo², David Lee Nelson⁴, Gabriele Mikami Costa¹, Mariana Araújo Espósito², Luis Felipe Lima e Silva¹

¹Department of Agriculture, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil.
²Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil.
³Federal University of Vales de Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Unaí, Brazil.
⁴Federal University of Vales de Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Diamantina, Brazil.

Unconventional vegetables, in general, are plants that have been largely consumed by the population at some point and, because of changes in eating behavior, now present reduced economic and social expression and have lost ground to other vegetables. The objectives of this study were to perform phytochemical screening of the ethanol extracts of Rumex acetosa L., Tropaeolum majus L., Solanum muricatum, Stachys byzantina K. Koch and Solanum betaceum Cav. and evaluate their antioxidant potentials via the methods involving scavaging of the DPPH free radical and the ABTS radical, phosphomolybdenum and reducing power. In phytochemical screening, five species of unconventional vegetables tested positive for tannins; for sesquiterpene, lactones and other lactones. These tests were positive for Tropaeolum majus L. and Rumex acetosa L., Solanum betaceum Cav. and Solanum muricatum tested negative for steroids. Only Solanum betaceum Cav. gave positive tests for flavonoids. Among the five plant species studied, Stachys byzantina K. Koch presented the greatest antioxidant potential in all the methods evaluated.

Rumex acetosa L., Tropaeolum majus L., Stachys byzantina K. Koch, Reducing Power

Sousa Carvalho, M. , Graças Cardoso, M. , Resende, L. , Souza Gomes, M. , Marques Albuquerque, L. , Silvestri Gomes, A. , Sales, T. , Camargo, K. , Nelson, D. , Costa, G. , Espósito, M. and Lima e Silva, L. (2015) Phytochemical Screening, Extraction of Essential Oils and Antioxidant Activity of Five Species of Unconventional Vegetables. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 6, 2632-2639. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2015.616265.