| Summary: | Gynura procumbens or longevity spinach plant is a type of medicinal plant that distributes widely in Southeast Asia including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Phillipines. In Malaysia, G. procumbens is commonly called as pokok Sambung Nyawa, Sabong Nyawa, Akar Sebiak or Kecam Akar; and often consumed as ulam or salad. Ulam means the food is served raw or freshly uncooked; thus there might be a number of microorganism particularly bacteria that are still inhabiting the leaves. As modern technology is growing rapidly, there is still little to no information in studies and researches focusing on the link between medicinal plants and bacteria that inhabit the plant specifically epiphytic bacteria on the leaf surface. Besides, studies on diversity of bacteria inhabiting the phyllosphere is still unclear. Thus, this study aimed to identify bacteria from the surface of G. procumbens leaves based on morphology through Gram-staining and genetics using 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing; and to determine the possible contribution of the bacteria to the medicinal properties of G. procumbens. The findings from this research suggested the presence of five species of bacteria i.e. Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, Pantoea agglomerans, Sphingomonas melonis and Burkholderia cepacia. From further readings, it is known that some of the species have its potential towards medicinal application such as production of antibiotics. In addition, it is hypothesised that the production of some secondary metabolites in the plant might be due to the presence of the bacteria.
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