A chillea millefolium is an important medicinal and aromatic plant and is grown commercially for production of essential oil in many countries including Egypt. The plant extract and essential oil possess antioxidant, antimicrobial, antispasmodic and antitumor properties. We hypothesized that the essential oil content and composition may be influenced by harvest time and environmental conditions. Thus, flowering heads yield and the essential oil content and quantitative composition were investigated during different harvest times in the Experimental Station of National Research Centre at Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, West of Nile Delta, Egypt under drip irrigation. Flowering heads yield and essential oil composition varied according to harvest time. The highest essential oil yield was observed at the second harvest on10 April and 5 May of the first and second seasons, respectively. The essential oils at the different harvest times were characterized by containing monoterpenes with high amounts of β-pinene (24.1-54.6%) and sabinene (3.1-7.4%). The most abundant sesquiterpenes were chamazulene (10.1-26.7%) followed by geramacrene-D (1.3-10.3%) and β-caryophyllene (0.9-6.4%). Plants harvested on 21 February provided essential oil with relatively high concentration of chamazulene and germacrene-D. Chamazulene and germacrene-D decreased gradually at the later harvests, while β-pinene and limonene reached the maximum concentration in plants harvested on15 May. These results indicate that flowering heads yield and essential oil content and composition can be influenced by harvest time and climatic conditions which can be useful to producers and processors of Achillea millefolium.

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Abstract:The study was carried out to identify the etiological agents causing ringworm, evaluate the in vitro and in vivo antifungal activity of Lawsonia inermis L. In vitro study was carried out using agar dilution method. In a total of 50 clinical samples, 4 different species were identified namely; Microsporum canis, Trichophyton tonsurans, Trichophyton rubrum, and Trichophyton mentagrophytes. However, the results showed that hexane extract exerted a strong antifungal activity against all the identified etiological agents, with a minimum inhibitory concentration of 625µg/ml except Microsporum canis which resisted the minimum concentration but susceptible to the higher concentrations. The in vivo study was carried out using 15 naturally infected goats. First, second and third group of animals were treated with henna paste, aqueous and ethanolic extract respectively, fourth group were treated with clotrimazole as a positive control while negative control (fifth) group were left untreated with neither henna nor clotrimazole. The treatments were compared and the results showed that henna paste had the highest efficacy against all the types of ringworm tested compared to the remaining treatments. Disappearance of lesion and complete repair of the hair was observed at 30 days after treatment. Significantly similar result was observed in the group of animals treated with aqueous extract, ethanol extract, and clotrimazole in all the parameters. Significant different was only observed between groups treated and negative control.

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