Plant Material
The fresh green leaves of Bougainvillea spectabilis visibly free from disease and weighing 1gm or more were collected locally. The botanical identity of the plant of Bougainvillea spectabilis was authenticated from the botany department of Smt. K. W. College, Sangli(India) by Dr. K. S. Patil.

Preparation of Extract

The leaves were washed thoroughly several times with potable water and then air-dried. Dried leaves were pulverized to fine powder, which was soaked (20 g) separately in 100ml of ethanol, 100ml of acetone, and also in a similar quantity of distilled water for 24 to 48hrs. This was then filtered and centrifuged at 7000 x g for 10mins to remove all insoluble materials. The clear supernatant was stored at 4°C for further studies.

Antibacterial Activity
The growth pattern of the test organisms was checked by growing these in a sterile liquid medium containing meat extract 0.5%, peptone 1%, and NaCl 0.5% at pH 7.0. The organisms were added at a 10% level (v/v), with a cell density of 6 x 108 cells/ml. along with 10 ml of the respective extract. Similarly, the second set of experiments were set, where instead of extracts, the same quantity of the respective solvents was added. This was the solvent control set. The third set of flasks was used where 10 ml of extracts were added but no organism was inoculated. This was essential for adjusting the zero reading of the spectrophotometer. The flasks were incubated for 150 minutes on a rotary shaker at 120 r.p.m. The growth was monitored by measuring absorbance at 540 nm at 30 minutes intervals. The solvent extracts were also subjected to GC MS analysis to identify the compounds showing antibacterial properties.