ABSTRACT
The discrimination analysis among the medicinal herbs of the family Piperaceae had been carried out for the identification and characterization of phytoconstituents by performing tedious methods of extraction and sample preparation using various chromatographic methods. The mass spectrometer used was a JMS—-100 TLC atmospheric pressure ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer fitted with a direct analysis in real time (DART) ion source. The DART-MS fingerprints of P. nigrum, P. chaba and P. longum showed the potentiality and versatility of this technique for the quality control of these medicinal herbs. Plant materials were collected from the plants grown in the herbal garden of Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute Palode, Thiruvananthapuram, India. Voucher specimens, P. nigrum TBGT-57944, P. chaba TBGT-51838 and P. longum TBGT-50930, were deposited in TBGRI, Palode, Thiruvananthapuram, India. For DART-mass spectrometry measurements, crude plant parts were used directly as samples.
