Aqueous, acetone and methanol leaf and fruit extracts of Croton bonplandianum Baill. were tested for genotoxicity and antimicrobial activity. Treatment of Allium roots revealed that all the extracts were slightly mitodepressive in nature. Leaf extracts of the plants prepared in acetone and methanol showed significant mitodepression only in 24 h treatment sets. Further various extracts induced a variety of clastogenic and non-clastogenic aberrations in the root tip cells (RTCs). The aqueous extract (leaf) produced 24.17% aberrations in the RTCs at anaphase/telophases followed by methanol extract (22.08%) and acetone extract (21.55%). The fruit extracts are less genotoxic as there are fewer cytological aberrations produced in RTCs at A/T phases. The antimicrobial studies revealed that methanol extract of leaf and fruit of Croton bonplandianum is more effective against tested microbes than aqueous and acetone extracts. The methanol extract showed maximum activity against gram positive bacteria and acetone extract of leaves showed maximum activity against gram negative bacteria. None of the extracts showed activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
