Abstract

Plants or their parts are used as folk medicines in many parts of the world to cure various infectious diseases such as bronchitis, urinary tract infections, diarrhea, cutaneous abscesses and parasitic diseases. The crude methanolic extract and various fractions of the aerial parts of Acacia modesta were screened for haemagglutination, antibacterial and phytotoxic insecticidal activities. The crude methanolic extract of the plant showed weak haemagglutination activity against A^+ive, B^-ive and O^+ive at dilution of 1:2. The ethyl acetate (EtOAc) fraction showed weak activity against B^-ive, A^-ive and O^+ive at dilution of 1:2.  The n-hexane and EtOAc fractions showed good antibacterial activity against Klebsiella pneumoniae (66.66%) and (61.90%), respectively. All the fractions showed moderate activity against Escherichia coli except chloroform (CHCl₃). Aqueous fraction showed no activity against Streptococcus pneumoniae. Low phytotoxic activity was shown by the test samples at concentration of 1000 and100 µg/ml against Lemna minor L. At 10 µg/ml, no phytotoxic activity was shown by the test samples. The n-hexane fraction showed good (60%), EtOAc and aqueous fractions, low (20%), while the crude methanolic extract and CHCl₃ fractions were inactive against Callosbruchus analis.

Key words: Acacia modesta, haemagglutination, antibacterial, phytotoxic, insecticidal, MIC_50.