Introduction

Abstract

Although different chemical methods of analysis, especially chromatography, are now accepted as standard techniques for the identification of many plant materials, microscopic structure is long established as providing a most useful and reliable criteria. Microscopy is especially useful in the examination of mixtures when individual components can readily be identified where no satisfactory chromatographic identification would be possible. Microscopy also has the advantages of requiring only small quantities of the material, and once the technique has been acquired, a conclusion as to whether or not a sample is genuine can be reached very rapidly. The present book describes some important botanical microscopic characters of the whole, fragmented, and powdered herbal drugs in the form of colour drawn images as they are observed under a microscope.