[Analysis of the chloroplast genome characteristics of Rhus chinensis by de novo sequencing].

Rhus chinensis is an important economic species, which could provide raw materials for pharmaceutical and industrial dyes. Rhus chinensis is famous for its resistance to drought, cold, and salt. It grows in temperate, warm temperate, and subtropical regions. We report here Rhus chinensis chloroplast genomes by de novo sequencing. The results show that the length of Rhus chinensis was 159 082 bp, exhibiting a typical four-part structure with two single-copy regions (long single copy [LSC] and short single copy [SSC] sections) separated by a pair of inverted repeats (IRs). The length of LSC and SSC was 85 394 bp and 18 663 bp, respectively. The genomes contained 126 genes, including 88 protein encoding genes, 8 rRNA and 30 tRNA genes. In the chloroplast genome, 61.97% of the sequence were gene coding region. In the sequence of gene encoding region, the vast majority of sequences were protein encoding region, accounting for 86.65%, followed by rRNA (10 620 bp, 10.77%) and tRNA (2 540 bp, 2.58%). In Rhus chinensis chloroplast genome, only 8 genes contain introns, all containing 1 intron except ycf3 gene (2 introns). The Rhus chinensis chloroplast genome contains 755 SSR locies. SSR mainly consists of dinucleotide and mononucleotide, accounting for 60% (453) and 28.74% (217) respectively. The clustering results show that Anacardiaceae were closest to Rhus chinensis, followed by Aceraceae and Sapindaceae. This study provides a molecular basis for the classification of Rhus chinensis.

Rhus javanica var. chinensis as a new plant origin of propolis from Okayama, Japan.

To directly identify the plant origin of propolis from Takebe-cho (Okayama, Japan), we observed the honeybee behavior. Honeybees scraped sap from the tree, Rhus javanica var. chinensis. We compared the constituents and radical-scavenging activity of this sap and propolis. Their chemical constituents and radical-scavenging activity were comparable. This indicates directly that the plant origin of this propolis is R. javanica var. chinensis.

Does Donglan lacquer tree belong to Rhus vernicifera species?

The lacquer trees in Donglan of Guangxi Province, China, were identified totally as the species Rhus succedanea found in Vietnam and Taiwan region, based on the results of pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS), an easy and effective method to identify species of trees among those with similar properties. Analyses by IR and NMR, the drying properties, and conventional morphology also confirmed that the Donglan lacquer trees do not belong to Rhus vernicifera, like most trees of the China mainland. Some differences, however, such as the enzymatic activity and the components of the lacquer, were found between the Donglan lacquer and the Vietnam lacquer. The Donglan lacquer has a shorter drying time than the latter.