Rasna Extract (Pluchea lanceolata)

Rasna is a trade name, not a species, and that is the single most important commercial fact about this product. In North India and in the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India, Rasna is Pluchea lanceolata (DC.) C.B.Clarke, an Asteraceae subshrub whose native range runs from Senegal, Chad and Tanzania through Iran and Afghanistan to Pakistan and western and northern India. In South India the same name is applied to Alpinia galanga, Alpinia calcarata and Alpinia officinarum, all Zingiberaceae rhizomes, and in Bengal it is applied to the orchid Vanda roxburghii (V. tessellata). Published comparative pharmacognostic work on market samples confirms that all three types circulate side by side in the raw drug trade. Thovek supplies the Pluchea lanceolata material and names the species on every document; buyers should state the Latin binomial on the purchase order rather than the vernacular name. The characterised constituents of P. lanceolata aerial parts are the flavonoids quercetin and isorhamnetin (reported from air-dried leaves), the triterpenoids moretenol, moretenol acetate, neolupenol and taraxasterol, the alkaloid pluchine, plus beta-sitosterol, stigmasterol, pluchiol and pluchioside; hydrolysed extracts also show chlorogenic acid, gallic acid, catechin and quercetin as abundant phenolics by HPLC. The genus offers no single universally adopted pharmacopoeial marker, so Thovek standardises on total flavonoids expressed as quercetin equivalents by UV, with confirmatory HPLC on quercetin and isorhamnetin and an HPTLC fingerprint of the finished lot. That fingerprint is also the practical way to demonstrate that no Alpinia rhizome has been substituted, since the two families give entirely unlike chromatographic profiles. One labelling point matters for the buyer's regulatory file. Pluchea lanceolata belongs to the Asteraceae (Compositae), the family that includes ragweed, chamomile and chrysanthemum, and several markets expect Compositae-family botanicals to be identifiable on the label for consumers with known sensitivity to that family. This is a labelling and pharmacovigilance consideration, not a health claim. The extract itself carries no milk, egg, soy, fish, crustacean, gluten or nut input, is vegan and vegetarian, and contains no bovine, porcine or marine material. Thovek describes composition and food-technology function only and makes no therapeutic or disease claim.