Calotropis procera extract leaf root stem - Research Paper Example

Calotropis procera extract leaf root stem Calotropis procera is a small tree that grows in deserts especially in the dry parts of Asia and Africa more specifically in northern Egypt as a wild plant. It has short, shinny, and succulent stems with fine thorns acting as its leaves (Kamel, 2010). These are adaptive features that the plant developed to withstand the harsh climatic conditions of its ecology. Consequently, these features that the plant developed purely for survival have resulted in it having a number of byproducts in its flowers, latex, leaf, roots, and stems.

These products include water, oil, and alcohol. The plant has a number of medicinal uses in the treatment of: leprosy, fever, menorrhagia, malaria, and snake bites a factor that makes the extraction of its juices fundamental. Below are brief discussions of how its most fundamental juices are extracted: Water is the most basic of the three and the easiest to extract. The plant has deep roots that reach the water tables and additionally some of its roots fly right below the ground surface to tap all the rain water in the light showers that may be experienced in the desert.

Slicing right through the stem of the plant opens the two very fundamental structures; the phloem and the xylem. This exposure results in the xylem dripping the water that was being transported to the roots and other parts for photosynthesis (Sharma & Sharma, 1999).Oil is also easy to extract from the plant. Since water is easily lost through transpiration from plants, this plant faces an acute shortage of the commodity. To preserve the little it has, it opts to carry out any other transportation system through its body in oil form.

Oil is thick and viscous and is not easily lost in any process. With an appropriate solvent, one can easily absorb oil from the stem of the plant (Ramar & Vincent, 1997). Alcohol is a product that the plant produces in the process of photosynthesis. It is produced from the reaction of water with carbon dioxide and is stored right beneath the back of the stem (Cronquist, 1981). ReferencesCronquist, A. (1981). An integrated system of classification of flowering plants. New York: Columbia University Press.

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