Sedum acre L., wall pepper or stone crop is a perennial member of the Crassulaceae family native
to Europe, Western Siberia, the Caucasian region and to North America. Ethanolic tinctures
of Sedi acris herba are used in homeopathy in the treatment of haemorrhoids and anal
pain [1, 2].
Sedum acre L. is monographed in the homoeopathic pharmacopoeia (HAB) 2005 [2]; however, the described
TLC procedure is a general comparative method. Thus, we propose a rapid and simple
TLC investigation applying the H-separating chamber and using different solvent systems
containing e.g. ethyl acetate, methanol, water at different proportions as mobile
phase (optimum 75+20+10) and diverse silica gel plates (e.g. Si 60, HPTLC-, RP-material)
as stationary phase. The optimised TLC conditions are performed on different samples
of homeopathic wall pepper tinctures and provide chromatograms showing satisfying
distributions of characteristic zones, e.g of arbutin, quercitrin, piperidin derivatives,
in the range of Rf values from about 0.2 to 0.8 (detection: UV 254, UV 366, natural product reagent).
The described TLC methods require short running times of about 4min, minute sorbens
plates (5×5cm), and small amounts of solvents (mobile phase approx. 2ml/performance)
as well as of homeopathic tinctures (application of 10–20µl/performance). These rapid
TLC-analytical investigations may be proposed for an improved HAB monograph of Sedum acre L.
References: [1] Brendler Th., Grünwald, J., Jänicke, Chr., Editors. (2003) Herbal Remedies, CD-ROM,
medpharm, Scientific Publishers, Stuttgart. [2] Deutsches Homöopathisches Arzneibuch
(2005), Monograph Sedum acre (Edition 2001).
