Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance against Mycobacterium and Candida are vital problems in immunocompromised patients. The current study was aimed to investigate the antimicrobial efficacy of fifteen folk medicinal plants found in Assam. Ethanolic plant extracts by well diffusion assay showed antimicrobial activity of 7 species against Mycobacterium smegmatis (ATCC^®607^TM) and 9 species against Candida albicans (ATCC^®90028^TM). Nepenthes khasiana exhibited highest zone of inhibition 21±0.5 mm against Mycobacterium smegmatis and this is the first report of Nepenthes khasiana showing anti-Mycobacterium activity from North East India. Mesua ferrea leaf extract first time exhibited good anti-candidal activity than the other studied species with zone of inhibition 11.83±0.76 mm. The impact of morphological characters on mechanistic convergence of anti-Mycobacterium and anti-Candida activities among the studied species was also assessed. Approximately 27 discrete morphological characters were used to prepare data matrix. Majority rule consensus tree of morphological data matrix with branch support ≥50 % using Mesquite 3.61 found that nearly 66.67 % species exhibited mechanistic convergence of anti-Mycobacterium and anti-Candida activity in combination congruent to morphological clustering. However, the clades viz., rosids, Murraya, Crinum and Alpinia showed partial congruence with angiosperm phylogeny group IV classification. A larger dataset including more than one representative species of each genus of the studied family and use of extensive morphological characters may exhibit a better mechanistic convergence.