Plant collections

These results seemed to establish with certainty that the active component of tube curare is derived from Chondrodendron tomentosum, but the matter again became doubtful when King reported that in the stems of a carefully authenticated specimen of the plant, collected at Tarapoto in Peru, he had found 1-curine and Z-tubocurarine chloride. This is the first recorded natural occurrence of the latter and seems to indicate either that the alkaloidal components of the plant are not constant in character, or that the botanical description of Chondrodendron tomentosum covers two species containing the dextro- and Icevo- quaternary alkaloids respectively. 

Chionochloa, known locally as snow tussock, consists of 22 species, 21 of which are native to New Zealand. The remaining species occurs in southeastern Australia and does not figure in the discussion. Studies of triterpene methyl ethers (TMEs) have revealed the existence of different chemodemes (Connor and Purdie, 1976, 1981). In some instances, it was shown that TMEs were present in populations of a given species in one part of its range but absent from others arundoin [57] (see Fig. 2.12 for structures 57-59) was identified from plants collected at Harpers... 

This example demonstrates how widely chemical profiles can differ between two populations separated by only a matter of kilometers in this case, populations of halictrum minus L. in the Voj vodina area of Serbia (Popovic et al., 1992) (Fig. 2.20). Plants collected at 500 m in the Fruska Gora Mountains (Novi Sad) afforded a comparatively complex mixture of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids that consisted of... 

The north-south gradient was also evident in the concentration of the most abundant chemotype, which was shown to consist of linalool [19] and its acetate. Most frequent in Greenland, Iceland, and Norway (90-100%), it was present in only 40% of plants collected in Scotland, and in only ca. 5% of plants from southern sites. This finding paralleled the observations of Stahl-Biskup and Laakso (1990) that a similar north-south trend exists in the oils of Thymus ser-pyllum subspecies serpyllum and tanaensis in Finland. The opposite trend was observed with y-terpinene, which was present in southern populations but absent from those from the northern sites. 

Kirch et al. (1995) examined individual plants collected in Corsica, Elba, Sardinia, Liguria, and Provence for alkaloids and observed four groups, one characterized by sparteine [119] (see Fig. 2.34 for structures 119-124), one characterized by lupanine-based alkaloids [120 and 121], one that had a very low level of alkaloid production, and one that lacked sparteine and lupanine-based compounds, but did accumulate other alkaloids such as anagyrine [122], ammodendrine [123], and compounds based on cytisine [124], their outlier group. The distribution of these four chemotypes is presented in Table 2.10. 

One final note on this topic involves an examination of diploid, triploid, and tetraploid plants for their leaf exudate hydrocarbons (Seigler et al., 1975). -Alkanes having odd numbered chains from to were recorded for almost all plants collected from several sites with much more limited distribution of hydrocarbons based on and C g. The hydrocarbon data do not assist in distinguishing groups within this species. 

The authors discounted the existence of two chemotypes of L. dulcis on the grounds that no evidence appears to exist as to this level of plasticity in this species. Rather, they suggested that the problem likely arose in the source of the Mexican specimen, which consisted of plants collected in the vicinity of Tlayacapan (Morelos) and mixed with hierba dulce purchased in a market in Mexico City. Adulteration of the commercial product, not an uncommon practice, likely accounts for the striking chemical differences between the two specimens. 

Species of Bazzania have been shown to be a rich source of terpene derivatives. Bazzania trilobata is no exception as evidenced by the identification of no less than 44 compounds from European collections, and 29 from plants collected in North America (Warmers and Konig, 1999). The major differences between plants from the two sides... 

Marchantia brachiata (Sw.) Schiffn. is a liverwort that also enjoys a wide distribution. It is included here to offset the idea that liverworts of wide occurrence need to exhibit different chemistries in order to attract attention. Nagashima et al. (1999) identified four compounds from plants collected in Ecuador 3,4-dimethoxystyrylbenzene [456], 2,4,5-trimethoxystyrylbenzene [457], P-caryophyllene [458], and bicycloger-macrene [459], In the words of those workers, there was ... ostensibly no metabolic differences between Marchantia brachiata collected in the Netherlands Antilles, Saba, and in Ecuador. ... 

Reef (Coll and Wright, 1987). Several related compounds have also been identified from plants collected on Amami Island (north of Okinawa) by Ichikawa et al. (1974). 

Additional support for this suggestion came from a study of L. distichophylla J. Agardh collected off the northeastern coast of New Zealand by Blunt et al. (1984). These workers examined the sesquiterpene chemistry of plants collected at three depths (1) low intertidal to upper subtidal (2) mid-intertidal and (3) upper intertidal. Chromatographic fingerprints of the latter two collections were identical, but the profile of fhe deep-gathered planfs differed in botti ttie number of compounds... 

J. Agardh f. snackeyi Weber-van Bosse) should be accorded recognition as L. snackeyi (Weber-van Bosse) stat. nov. Plants collected from sites in Viet Nam yielded the two halogenated sequiterpenoids palisadin-A [513] and aplysistatin [514], Plants collected near Pnlau Sipanggan, in Malaysia, however, added a third componnd, 5-acetoxypalisadin-B [515], to the array. At the time of writing, at least, those com-ponnds characterized this species. 

Diagnostic characters of new species of phanerogamous plants collected in Japan... 

OFAs from the first four, higher plants, were extracted from plants collected in the late summer of 1983. It should be noted here that yields of OFAs from E. mlcrocarpa were higher during the early Summer months when maximum growth was occurring. 

Rooted aquatic plants, such as wild rice (Zizania aquatica), can accumulate up to 67 mg Pb/kg dry weight when cultured in tanks contaminated with high concentrations of powdered lead (equivalent to 7400 kg Pb/ha) however, this level is not considered hazardous to waterfowl feeding on wild rice (Behan et al. 1979). Lead content in plants collected from heavily hunted areas near refuges did not differ from those collected in the protected areas (Behan et al. 1979), which suggests that lead bioavailability to rooted aquatics is substantially lower from shot than from powdered lead. 

Most of the plants, collected from Lamiaceae family, are aromatic and grown in Aegean-Mediterranean regions (West-South Anatolia). These are Salvia, Sideritis, Thymus, Origanum, Satureja, Stachys, Micromeria, Nepeta etc. 

Chamomile has long been one of the very important medicinal plants collected and cultivated in Poland. A comparison of essential oil yields from the four Polish samples indicates the lowest essential oil content, about 0.3%, in the chamomile... 

The aim of plant collection on the Kl waste dump was to identify naturally widespread plant species able to grow on contaminated areas and/or accumulate large amounts of radionuclides, and which would be suitable candidates for radiophytoremediation purposes. In all, 44 plant... 

The effects of site and elevation on alkaloid content have been described by Carey and Wink (1994). Total alkaloid content decreases as elevation increases, and was shown to be six times higher in plants at 2700 m versus plants collected at 3500 m. This phenomenon persisted even when seedlings from the highest and lowest elevations were grown under identical greenhouse conditions, thus... 

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