Phytochemical Screening ,Characterization and Antimicrobial Activity of Foeniculum Vulgare Mill(Fennel) Seeds And Its Volatile oil

Abstract

The Foeniculm vulgare mill belongs to the family Apiaceae known as fennel plant, its widespread annual or perennial plant. fennel is well known to ancient Indians, Chinese, Egyptians and Romans.In this study, Essential oil of fennel seeds was isolated using soxhlet and hydrodistillation methods. From the determined oil content it was found that soxhlet method is better than the hydrodistillation in extraction of the volatile oil . The result showed that the highest yield of essential oil by using soxhlet extraction(12%) than hydrodistillation extraction (0.75) .The extracted oil was subjected to analysis using GC-MS techniques, the results reveal that the oil contain 15 components and the volatile oil rich in D-Carvone(66.33%) and D-Limonene(31.93%). The seeds was extracted using n-hexane, Chloroform, Ethyl acetate ,Methanol, and water as solvents ,then each extract was phytochemicalty screened which indicated that the extracts were rich in alkaloids ,saponins, tannins, steroids, reducing sugar glycosides and flavonoids, phytochemical constituents were found more in methanolic extract than other extracts. Also the extract was examined to some microbe such as Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Candida albicans,Escherichia coli, pseudomonas aeruginosa using Disc diffusion method, the highest inhibition zone was found against Pseudomonas