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Lotus croniculatus belongs to Fabaceae family and grows in the temperate regions and grasslands of the countries of Africa and America. The plant is commonly known as common bird’s foot tree foil. The plant is a herb and appears to be clover plant. The flowers of the plant are used mainly to induce sleep and other effects that regard to brain and heart. The plant is used to reduce spasms in the digestive tract. The infusions that are diluted to certain extent are helpful to reduce the anxiety and insomnia and also to treat exhaustion. Inspite of the possession of lot of pharmacological activities, the plant is to be studied in a detailed manner for the toxicity also. Medicinal plants are known to cause low adverse effects and high potency. In the present investigation, the acute and chronic toxicity levels of the plant Lotus croniculatus extract of leaves was studied in laboratory animals. It is indicated that the animals did not show any change in behavior in acute toxicity and no mortality too. The extract also showed no signs of toxicity and change of values in the blood cells, liver enzymes and also kidney function tests were also normal at the dose of 2g/kg which denotes the safety of the plant in rats.

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Pollen viability is crucial for wheat breeding programs. The unique potential of the protoplasm of live cells to turn brown due to the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) through rapid photoreduction of Ag+, was exploited for testing wheat pollen viability. Ag+-viability test medium (consisting of 0.5 mM AgNO3 and 300 mM KNO3) incubated with wheat pollen turned brown within 2 min under intense light (~600 μmol photon flux density m-2s-1), but not in dark. The brown medium displayed AgNPs-specific surface plasmon resonance band in its absorption spectrum. Light microscopic studies showed the presence of uniformly stained brown protoplasm in viable pollen incubated with Ag+-viability medium in the presence of light. Investigations with transmission electron microscope coupled with energy dispersive X-ray established the presence of distinct 5–35 nm NPs composed of Ag. Powder X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that AgNPs were crystalline and biphasic composed of Ag0 and Ag2O. Conversely, non-viable pollen and heat-killed pollen did not turn brown on incubation with Ag+-medium in light. We believe that the viable wheat pollen turn brown rapidly by bio-transforming Ag+ to AgNPs through photoreduction. Our findings furnish a novel simplest and rapid method for testing wheat pollen viability.