Role of Unprofessional Storage Methods on the Heavy Metal Content of Rosa Damascena (Gole Mohammadi)

As majority of people around the world rely on non-conventional medicine mainly of herbalsources for their primary healthcare nowadays, the quality of herbal medicine is one of themost important issues. The products may be contaminated with chemical toxins, excessivepesticides and heavy metals during the growth process with contaminated environment or duringharvesting, storing conditions and transferring process to herbal market. Chemical toxins maycome from wrong storage conditions or chemical treatment due to transferring to herbal market.The aims of this study were to : determination of the contents of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Hg, Pb and Znin Rosa Damascena available in Iranian market in comparison with these heavy metal contentsin samples which is harvested from Kashan farms in order to find probable effect of transferringand storing process in contamination issue. The samples were analyzed by a Flame EmissionSpectrophotometer and an automated continuous flow hydride vapor generation system wasused for mercury. our results showed that the majority of medicinal plants (flowers) samplesfrom markets had higher level of these heavy metals although these contents in samples whichharvested from Kashan farms shows lower level of heavy metal contamination. It revealed thatprobably the transferring process and storing herbal plants are the main factors for contaminating.