Impressive reports of increased forest cover mask a focus on non-native tree crops that could damage the ecosystem, says XU Jianchu.
In the United Nations' 2011 International Year of Forests, China is heralded as a superstar. Almost single-handedly, the country has halted long-term forest loss across Asia, and even turned it into a net gain. Since the 1990s, China has planted more than 4 mi...
A new Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains endemic genus, <em>Parasyncalathium</em> (Asteraceae, Cichorieae, Lactucinae) is described. <em>Parasyncalathium</em> is based on <em>Syncalathium souliei</em>, originally placed in <em>Lactuca</em> sect.<em> Aggregatae</em>, as <em>L. souliei</em>, then later moved to <em>Syncalathium</em>.
DNA barcoding is becoming more and more important for rapid and accurate identification of plant species. After a joint international effort, the two-marker combination of rbcL+matK was proposed as the ‘core’ barcode for land plants in August 2009 by CBOL Plant Working Group 2009, and trnH-psbA and ITS suggested as supplementary barcodes. To evaluate the universally and effectiveness of the f...
Parashorea chinensis Wang Hsie is a momentous timber tree and is ecologically important in tropical forests in parts of southern China and adjacent Indo-china as one of the tallest trees in the region. The plant usually grows in dense forests at middle elevations of 300 to1100 m in the valleys and on mountain slopes.
In southern China, it is locally known as “Chuan Ban Shu”, which means ...
Daphniphyllum alkaloids, elaborated by plants of the genus Daphniphyllum (Daphniphyllaceae), are a family of structurally diverse natural products with complex polycyclic skeletons. Their unique structural features have attracted great interest as challenging projects for total synthesis and biosynthetic research for several decades.
Previous studies conducted in HAO Xiaojiang’s group by Z...
The intercontinental disjunctions between eastern Asia and North America have attracted much attention from evolutionary biologists in the last two decades. Biogeographic analyses of ferns with an eastern Asian-North American disjunction are few. The Adiantum pedatum complex includes four species distributed in North America and eastern Asia extending to the Himalayas (Fig. 1). The monophy...
<em>Cynanchum otophyllum</em> Schneid (Chinese name Qingyangshen) is a folk medicinal plant endemic to Yunnan Province of China, whose root was used for the treatment of epilepsy, rheumatic pain, kidney weakness, and muscle injures by local people.
Tongling (Anhui Province, China) has traditionally been regarded as an ideal cultivation place (Fig.1-a). “Tongling White Ginger” (Fig.1-b) enjoys a reputation for being one of top gingers in China for its thin white peel, tender flesh, rich juice and flavor, which was, therefore, regarded as “one of the eight treasures” in Tongling. However, except for the essential oil, no details of the...
Professor CHEN Jijun and his colleagues systemically studied the chemical components of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs-Swertia mileensis to provide 23 interesting new compounds and another 16 compounds.
Based on spectral evidence and X-ray single diffraction analysis, these new compounds had be elucidated as 4 novel types of iridoid lactones composing of C18, C20 , C29 including A...
