Abstract
The flora of Saudi Arabia includes enormous numbers of endemic species representing row materials for different applications. Due to its vegetation prosperity, Al-Baha region is one of the most important regions in Saudi Arabia besides, Asir, Hijaz, Al-Taif and the western mountainous area of the kingdom. In this work, the antioxidant potential of ten plant samples from Lamiaceae and Apiaceae was studied using different solvents (ethanol, hexane and water) with respect to their total water-soluble antioxidant and lipid-soluble antioxidant activity (TLAC and TWAC), exhibiting that from Lamiaceae, the aqueous extract of sage plant samples (Salvia officinalis) had the highest total and strong water-soluble antioxidant (TWAC: 408.531 +/- 5.378 mu mol L-ascorbic acid/g; TWAC(37): 23.52 +/- 0.785 mu mol L-ascorbic acid/g).
The ethanolic extract of mint plant samples (Mentha piperita) had the highest total lipid-soluble antioxidant capacity (TLAC: 269.129 +/- 11.069 mu mol alpha-tocopherol/g) while the sage ethanolic extract revealed the highest TLAC(37) (35.443 +/- 0.524 mu mol alpha-tocopherol/g). The TLAC of tarragon (Menthe longifolia) hexanic extract was the highest (75.925 +/- 0.349 mu mol alpha-tocopherol/g), therefore, the sage hexanic extract demonstrated the highest TLAC(37) (4.016 +/- 0.009 mu mol alpha-tocopherol/g). Lamiaceae plant samples were superior in comparison with Apiaceae plant material in all studied parameters. Anise, fennel and cumin were good sources of TWAC, TWAC(37), TLAC and TLAC(37).