Isolation of two antibacterial compounds from the bark of Salix capensis

Abstract

Livestock owners in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa continue to use medicinal plants to treat their livestock. The bark of S. capensis, one of the plants commonly used, was extracted in ethanol. The resultant extract was partitioned between n-hexane and water. The n-hexane extract was subjected to a series of column chromatography using various solvent systems, yielding two known compounds: catechol and 2-hydroxybenzyl alcohol. When tested on several bacterial strains, the compounds exhibited significant antibacterial activity with minimum inhibitory concen- trations ranging from 62.5–250µg ml^–1.

South African Journal of Botany 2005, 71(3&4): 441–443