Pantropical disjunctions usually involve tropical regions of the Americas, Africa, south-eastern Asia and Australia. Studies of the origin and diversification of tropical intercontinental disjunctions in plants may provide important insights into the evolutionary assembly of tropical forests. However, most studies have focused on the family level, and only a few groups have been examined a...
Many temperate angiosperm genera exhibit disjunct distribution patterns among Asia, North America and Europe, with the most common studied disjunction pattern being eastern Asia–eastern North America. Within Asia, many plant species researched show a disjunct distribution between China and Japan. To date, there have been a few phylogeographical studies of the origins of disjunct distribution...
Tribe Gomphostemmateae Scheen & Lindqvist (Lamiaceae: Lamioideae) includes three genera—Bostrychanthera Benth., Gomphostemma Wall. ex Benth. and Chelonopsis Miq., which together comprise about 46 species. Chelonopsis is an East Asian genus and subdivided into two subgenera: subg. Chelonopsis is a Sino-Japanese group while subg. Aequidens is a Sino-Himalaya group. As currently circumscribe...
Carotenoids are important pigments that are involved in photosynthesis as well as the sole source of pre-vitamin A. Dietary carotenoids have been shown to be beneficial to health by decreasing the risk of many diseases. Astaxanthin (3,3'-dihydroxy-β-carotene-4,4'-dione) is a unique red carotenoid responsible for the pigmentation of many marine animals which acquire the red pigment from their d...
Acerola cherry is the fruit of Malpighia emarginata (Malpighiaceae). Early in 1946, it was reported to contain abundant vitamin C with content as much as 4000 mg/100 g and given the name of ‘the king of natural vitamin C’.
Consigned by Amway (China), QIU Minghua group , Kunming institute of botany, conducted in-depth study on the chemical constituents of acerola cherry tree and found...
With the sequencing of genomes from many organisms now complete and the development of high-throughput sequencing, life science research has entered the functional post-genome era. Therefore, deciphering the function of genes and how they interact is in greater demand. To study an unknown gene, the basic methods are either overexpression or gene knockout by creating transgenic plants, and gene ...
Ethnic minorities living in Yunnan of China have accumulated a wealth of traditional botanical knowledge (TBK). Recently, a field survey in south and southeast of Yunnan was conducted by the LONG Chunlin group from Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The group found that the local people such as De’ang and Ji’nuo had traditional ways of using Piper (Piperaceae) plan...
A rare tree in Southwest China's Yunnan province has bloomed for the first time since it was transferred to a botanical garden 30 years ago.
The tree, a 13-meter-high Chinese manglietiastrum, was transplanted for conservation in 1983 from Xichou county to Kunming Botanical Garden in Kunming, Yunnan's capital.
Experts say the blossom shows that the experiment has succeeded, and the metho...
Cremastra malipoensis G. W. Hu, a new rare species in Orchidaceae, was recently discovered by Dr. HU Guangwan from Kunming Institute of Botany. It occurs in southeastern Yunnan, China, near the border of Vietnam. It is most similar to C. appendiculata, but its inflorescences have fewer flowers, only 4-7; its flowers are positioned horizontally and become slightly pendulous; lateral lobes of lip...
