Piper betle Linn. is a traditional plant associated with the Asian and southeast Asian cultures. Its use is also
recorded in folk medicines in these regions. Several of its medicinal properties have recently been proven. Phytochemical
analysis showed the presence ofmainly terpenes and phenols in betel leaves. These constituents vary in the different cultivars
of Piper betle. In this paper we have attempted to profile eight locally available betel cultivars using the recently developed
mass spectral ionization technique of direct analysis in real time (DART). Principal component analysis has also been employed
to analyze the DART MS data of these betel cultivars. The results show that the cultivars of Piper betle could be differentiated
using DART MS data.
