5.1 DISCUSSION
Gram-staining can be used to group bacteria into two main groups. Based on the properties of bacterial cell wall, gram staining is used to differentiate bacteria into either gram-positive or gram-negative bacteria (Sridhar, 2015). This is based on the ability of a bacteria to either absorb the primary stain, crystal violet (gram-positive) or inability to hold the crystal violet but rather the safranin (gram-negative) due to presence or absence of peptidoglycan layer (Gram, 1884; Sridhar, 2015). In this study, both S. aureus and B. subtilis were stained violet after the gram staining and microscopy while the E. coli was stained pink. This was expected because, S. aureus and B. subtilis are gram positive while E. coli is gram negative bacteria.…show more content… There are proven and documented evidence of the use of some species of Millettia for the treating bacterial infections and malaria (Anderson 1986; Desta, 1993). As a member of this genus, Millettia zechiana has been studied to contain some medicinal values (Bouquet and Debray, 1974; Burkill, 1995; Okafor and Ham, 1999) but not the antibacterial properties of this species. It was observed that, the crude extracts of the leaves and flowers were active against all the test isolates. This implies that the crude ethanolic extracts of the Millettia zechiana leaves and flowers are effective against both gram positive and gram negative bacteria species. In this study, the crude ethanolic extract of the leaves showed a higher inhibitory activity against E. coli and B. subtilis but a lower activity towards S. aureus as compared to the crude ethanolic extracts of the Millettia zechiana