Background: Medicinal plants are the major sources of the crude drugs and natural antioxidants. Berberis species have been used in the treatment of various ailments around the world including Nepal. However, systematic study on phytochemistry and pharmacology of Berberis species from Nepal is lacking. Objectives: To evaluate the antioxidant activity, total phenolic and flavonoid contents of Berberis aristata and Berberis thomsoniana from Sagarmatha National Park. Materials and Methods: Antioxidant activity was measured through 2, 2-Diphenyl-1-Picrylhydrazyl assay. Total phenolic and flavonoid content were estimated using Folin-Ciocalteau and aluminum chloride method respectively. Results: Samples showed dose-dependent radical scavenging activity. Radical scavenging activity of the methanolic extracts of different parts of B. aristata and B. thomsoniana ranged from 19.38 to 98.47%, with leaf extracts of B. thomsoniana showing the strongest activity. The total phenolic content of the samples varied from 11.04 to 65.30 mg GAE g -1 dry weight whereas total flavonoid content was in between 2.4 to 16.46 mg quercetin/g dry weight. Conclusion: Among the tested samples, leaf extracts of B. thomsoniana showed the strongest antioxidant activity and contained the highest amount of total phenolic and flavonoid content. ABSTRACT SUMMARY• Present study showed that leaf extract of B. thomsoniana showed promising antioxidant ability and contained higher amount of phenolics and flavonoids.Dr. Lok Ranjan Bhatt is a Senior Scientific Officer at Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Nepal. He has more than twenty years of experience in the areas of medicinal and aromatic plants, natural products and biomaterials. Currently, he has been working on nutritional composition of wild edible fruits and synthesis and characterization of herbal based polymer micro/nanospheres.

In Nepal morel mushroom is one of the most important wild edible fungi, which is exported, in larger quantities.They have been collected, consumed and traded for more than two decades. The morel mushroom trade is worth a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. This study was carried out to elucidate the current harvest and trade of morel mushrooms, the prospects for commercial morel industry development and the resource management in Nepal. Wild morels are harvested commercially and exported extensively from west Nepal especially from Karnali and Far West Province which share 58% and 29% of total national output respectively. Most commonly found and traded species are Morchella conica and M. esculenta. In most cases, the collectors sell morels in fresh form to the local dealers or in the local markets from where they are exported to different parts of the world. A bulk of morel mushrooms is traded via Nepalgunj and Mahendranagar routes. The local collectors get nominal benefits as prices are very low in the local area as compared to international markets. The price of M. conica is always higher than other morel species. There is neither processing nor any kind of value addition works currently being done in Nepal except drying, grading and packaging. The present study reveals that Nepal has a huge potential to become a major global producer of high quality morels. There is no serious concern about the overexploitation of the resource at the moment. However, a reliable local monitoring system and a scientific intervention for the artificial cultivation are inevitable for the sustainable management.

Wild edible fruits play an important role in the nutrition of rural people especially in the hilly and mountainous region, where the wild fruits could be the only source to consume. Though wild edible fruits are widely utilized throughout the country, little works have been done in Nepal on their nutritional and phytochemical analysis. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the antioxidant activity and nutraceutical potential of the selected wild edible fruits. The fruit samples were extracted in appropriate solvents and all the analyses were done in triplicates using 96 well ELISA plate reader. Nutritionally, Rubus acuminatus was found to be rich in Vitamin C (0.78 ± 0.01 mg/g) over other fruits. Protein content was found to be high in Berberis napaulensis (2.26 ± 0.71 %) and R. ellipticus showed greater lipid (0.15 ± 0.01 %) and β-carotene content (1.08 ± 0.01 mg/100mg). R. acuminatus was found to have high flavonoid content (9.26 ± 0.40 mg QE/g) and exhibited higher antioxidant activity while B. angulosa (29.67 ± 2.28 mg GAE/g) had the highest phenolic content.

Oxidative stress contributes to the aging process and raises the risk of several chronic diseases. In recent years, natural antioxidants are being explored intensively for their ability to protect organisms and cells from oxidative stress-induced harm. Furthermore, mushrooms are widely used as a source of natural therapies for a variety of ailments caused by oxidative stress. In this study antioxidant activities of Morchella conica Pers. extracts obtained with methanol were investigated. This is supposed to be the first report of the antioxidant activity of morel mushroom from Nepal. Five complimentary test systems; namely DPPH free radical scavenging, total phenolic compounds, total flavonoid, ascorbic acid, and carotenoid concentration were used. At concentrations of 12.5, 25, 50, 100 and 200 μg/ml the methanol extracts scavenged 69, 69, 70, 68 and 81% DPPH radicals. The total phenolic content of the extracts was 4.304±0.12 mg/g gallic acid equivalent. The total flavonoid compound concentration was measured as 0.381±0.00 mg/g quercetin equivalent. The concentrations of ascorbic acid were recorded 19±0.02 mg/g dry sample. β-carotene and lycopene detected in the extract of M. conica are 0.020±0.001 and 0.021±0.002 μg/ml respectively. Finally, the findings of this study demonstrated that M. conica has a high antioxidant activity, making it potentially effective in antioxidant therapy and therapeutic intervention in oxidative stress-related disorders.