Page 170 - Pharmacognosy 2 PG303

Pharmacognosy-2 (PG303) Level 2 Clinical Pharmacy-Pharm D

containing numerous starch granules and showing large intercellular spaces, lined
by a thin cuticle and into which project shortly-stalked, pear-shapped unicellular
glandular hairs secreting a greenish oleo-resin; vascular system, dictyostelic,
meristeles, with central xylem, each meristele, surrounded by an endodermis of
thick-walled elongated cells; pericycle, one layer of thin-walled parenchyma;
phloem, of large sieve tubes with lateral sieve plates, xylem, composed mainly of
large scalariform or occasionally spiral tracheids with oblique walls and pyramidal
ends, 1-3 protoxylem groups consisting of small spiral tracheids are found
embedded in the xylem. Ramentum, 1-cell thick, consisting of long fusiform
cells, with marginal teeth, each formed of two usually unequal outgrowths of two
adjacent cells, but no glandular hairs except at the base where there may be two
unicellular ones.

Powder
Powdered Male Fern is yellowish-green or brown with a slight odour and
sweetish astringent taste at first but then subsequently bitter and nauseous.
Microscopically it is characterized by:
1. Abundant fragments of large parenchyma cells containing
numerous starch granules.
2. Numerous fragments of scalariform tracheids.
3. Numerous fragments of non-lignified hypodermal sclerenchyma are
about 300 to 700 microns long.
4. Occasional fragments of ramenta showing characteristic, 2-celled
marginal teeth.
5. Numerous starch granules, simple, rounded, ovoid or ellipsoida, 2 to 25
microns mostly 4 to 8 microns in diameter.
6. Oleo-resin globules.
7. Absence of typical vessels and calcium oxalate crystals.

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