Standardization of the Corn Silk (Zea mays Linn.)

Corn silk is collection of the stigmas of corn (Zea Mays). Zea Mays is a monotypic genus of short or tall, generally robust, monoecious, annual grasses belonging to family Poaceae. The plant is reported to possess antifungal, antiviral, diuretic, and antitumour activity. The plant material was collected from Punjab and authenticated by taxonomist of GNDU, Amritsar. In present study, various standardization parameters of corn silk like macroscopical, microscopical characters, physicochemical parameters like total ash (6.5% ), water soluble ash (3.6%), acid insoluble ash (1.65%), sulphated ash (1%), foreign organic matter, loss on drying (9.8%), swelling index (2.5%), foaming index (less than 100), successive extractive values in various solvents like petroleum ether (2.1%), benzene (2.4%), chloroform (2.9%), ethyl acetate (3.4%), methanol (28.5%). Cold Maceration values, petroleum ether (2% ), benzene (2.3%), chloroform (2%), ethyl acetate (3%), methanol (30%). Behaviour on treatment with different chemical reagents of the dried corn silk, fluorescence characters under visible and ultralviolet light at 254 nm and 366 nm were studied to fix some pharmacognostic parameters that vary from region to region. Preliminary phytochemical studies on different extracts were also reported.