ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACTS OF VARIOUS PLANT LEAVES AGAINST SELECTED MICROBIAL SPECIES

To evaluate the antimicrobial activities of extract of leaves were examined against four common bacterial isolates. The ethanolic extracts of various leaves such as Moringa oleifera (Murungai) , Musa paradisiaca (Bananana), Azardiratica indica (Neem), solanum melongena (kathirikai), Cynodon dactylon(Grass), Alternanthera sessilis (Ponnangkani), Anisochilus carnosus (Karpooravalli), investigated individually for antimicrobial activity by disc diffusion method .These were investigated against selected species of Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Vibrio cholerae, Klebsiella pneumoniae to find the inhibitory activities of the microbes. The ethanolic extract of Azardiratica indica showed considerably high activity against Escherichia coli than other extracts. These results were compared with standard antibiotic Penicillin. But the extract showed higher activity than the given standard antibiotic.