Numerical taxonomy of origin plants of Fructus Xanthii and identification of its crude drug / 第二军医大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective: To conduct a numerical taxonomy research on the origin plants of Fructus Xanthii and to identify this crude drug, so as to provide evidence for the classification, identification and germplasm optimization of Xanthium genus. Methods: Fruits of Xanthium plants from 25 populations in China were collected and cultivated in the same location. Their growing conditions and morphological characteristics were observed after seedling emergence. And 20 taxonomic characters of the plants such as growth cycle, height of the whole plant, length of leafstalk, length and density of involucre, thorn, length of beak and color of ripe fruits, etc. were selected for detailed observation, recording and analysis. Original data matrix X= {Xii} 25×20 was established by means of 25 operational taxonomic units(OTU) and related 20 groups of characteristic data. The established matrix was analyzed using hierarchical cluster analysis on SPSS 13.0 software. Results and Conclusion: The origin plants of Fructus Xanthii from 25 populations of China fell into four groups, largely consistent with the morphological identification results of this study. The first group was identified as Xanthium sibiricum, the second as X. mongolicum, the third as X. sibiricum var. subinerme, and the fourth was temporarily named as Shenzhen-type cocklebur Xanthium sp.. The Shenzhen-type cocklebur was special in some taxonomic characters and was possibly a cultivated variety of Xanthium genus. The origin plants of Fructus Xanthii in China can be systematized into 3 species and 1 type, which has been added to the existing taxonomic criteria. The cluster analysis method in this study can be applied for discrimination of Xanthium plants and crude drugs.