Khan Amjad, Ahmad Mushtaq, Sultan Amir, Khan Raees, Raza Jamil, Ul Abidin Sheikh Zain, Khan Siraj, Zafar Muhammad, Uddin Mohammad N, Kazi Mohsin
Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
National Herbarium of Pakistan (Stewart Collection), Plant Genetic Resources Institute, National Agricultural Research Centre, PARC, Islamabad 30341, Pakistan.
Plants (Basel). 2024 Apr 10;13(8):1067. doi: 10.3390/plants13081067.
Herbal spices are an agricultural commodity, economically very important and beneficial in primary healthcare in the food and medicine sectors. Herbal spices are used as food flavoring agents as well as in phytotherapies throughout the world and have nutritive benefits. The food and medicine industries widely employ artificial or natural adulteration to retard the deterioration and utilization of these adulterants in food and medicine products has given rise to significant apprehension among consumers, primarily stemming from the potential health risks that they pose. Thus, their characterization for the purpose of identification, origin, and quality assurance is mandatory for safe human consumption. Here, we studied 22 samples of commonly traded herbal spices that belong to 20 different genera and 21 species comprising 14 families, investigated macroscopically or organoleptically as well as histologically under microscopic examination. In this study, we provide details on organoleptic features including appearance, taste, odor, color, shape, size, fractures, types of trichomes, and the presence of lenticels among the examined herbal spices and these features have great significance in the detection of both natural as well as artificial deterioration. In terms of microscopic characterization, each examined plant part comprising different anatomical characteristics has taxonomic importance and also provides useful information for authentication from natural adulterants. Furthermore, the studied taxa were also described with nutritive and therapeutic properties. For condiments, herbal beverages and medicinal purposes, different herbal parts such as leaves, floral buds, seeds, fruit, and accessory parts like mericarp, rhizome, bulbs, and bark were used and commercially traded. Similarly, in this study, the leaves of and , the floral buds of , the seeds of , , , , , and , the mericarp of , and were observed. As a result, we show the potential of herbal spices as a source of many valuable phytochemicals and essential nutrients for food, nutraceutical, and homoeopathic medicine.
草药香料是一种农产品，在经济上非常重要，在食品和医药领域的初级医疗保健中也有益处。草药香料在世界各地被用作食品调味剂以及用于植物疗法，并且具有营养益处。食品和医药行业广泛采用人工或天然掺假来延缓这些掺假物在食品和医药产品中的变质和使用，这在消费者中引起了极大的担忧，主要源于它们所带来的潜在健康风险。因此，为了安全的人类消费，对其进行鉴定、溯源和质量保证的特征分析是必不可少的。在此，我们研究了22个常见交易的草药香料样本，它们属于20个不同的属和21个物种，涵盖14个科，进行了宏观或感官以及显微镜下的组织学研究。在本研究中，我们提供了感官特征的详细信息，包括外观、味道、气味、颜色、形状、大小、断面、毛状体类型以及所检查的草药香料中皮孔的存在情况，这些特征在检测天然和人为变质方面具有重要意义。在微观特征方面，每个检查的植物部分具有不同的解剖特征，具有分类学重要性，也为鉴别天然掺假物提供了有用信息。此外，还描述了所研究的分类群的营养和治疗特性。用于调味品、草药饮料和药用目的的不同草药部分如叶子、花芽、种子、果实以及像分果爿、根茎、鳞茎和树皮等附属部分被使用并进行商业交易。同样，在本研究中，观察到了[具体植物1]和[具体植物2]的叶子、[具体植物3]的花芽、[具体植物4]、[具体植物5]、[具体植物6]、[具体植物7]、[具体植物8]和[具体植物9]的种子、[具体植物10]的分果爿以及[具体植物11]。结果，我们展示了草药香料作为食品、营养保健品和顺势疗法药物中许多有价值的植物化学物质和必需营养素来源的潜力。
