whitewind Posted July 27, 2012 (edited) Genus: Anisodus Species: tanguticus Popular Name(s): shan làngdàng, zang qie (China) Parts Used: Roots Habitat: Tibet, Nepal, Himalayas above 2,000m Anisodus tanguticus is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine. It is closely related to Anisodus acutangulus. It is mostly found growing in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. A. tanguticus are collected and used mostly for its medicinal effects thought to be derived from the biologically active nicotine and tropane alkaloids, it has high levels of hyoscyamine and scopolamine. Anisodamine and anisodine are two other alkaloids found in the roots which are extracted for medicine. It is from the Solanaceae family. Anisodus tanguticus is wild-collected for use in Chinese Herbal Medicine, and there is some concern that it might become rare and threatened unless conservation is undertaken soon. Genetic studies of this plant suggest there is a high degree of variance between the isolated populations, and any conservational work should include a large range of population groups. If anyone has seeds of this plant I would be happy to grow it to help distribute among the ethnobotanical community ;) http://en.wikipedia....odus_tanguticus http://plantsoftibet...org/pages/17127 http://www.lzumel.tk...ica.123-129.pdf http://www.academicj...e%20et%20al.pdf http://www.ingentaco...000001/art00026 Dormancy Breaking TreatmentsAnisodus tanguticus (Maxim) Pascher, is an endemic and threatened medicinal plant in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China. In natural conditions, its germination is low and progresses slowly. Four dormancy breaking treatments, chilling, chilling + gibberellic acid, gibberellic acid and mechanical scarification were used to determine whether they could improve germination. Scarification was the only treatment which allowed germination. Scarification improved germination from 0% (control) to over 70%, and the median germination time was approximately 4.1 d. A. tanguticus seeds therefore have a coat-imposed dormancy, and the hard seed coats act in preventing water absorption and gaseous exchange. These results provide a means to enhance seed germination and may help for propagation of this species. http://www.doaj.org/...tract&id=922626 Pollination BiologySelf-incompatibility occurs widely in the Solanaceae, but a few species in this family, or a few intraspecific populations or a few individuals within the populations are highly self-compatible and their breeding systems have evolved from outcrossing to selfing. We studied pollination biology of Anisodus tanguticus from this family, a perennial endemic to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. This species flowers in the early summer and probably suffers from the serious limitations of the outcrossing pollinator. We aimed to test whether the breeding systems of a few individuals in this species have shifted from outcrossing to selfing. Our experiments and observations were conducted in two populations with different altitudes. Most flowers of this species were incompletely protogynous, and the mean distance between the stigma and anthers decreased gradually with floral longevity. Both stigma and anthers did not come into touch when the corolla wilted in most of the monitored flowers and such herkogamy favours outcrossing. However, the complete contact of stigma and anthers in 4.9% of the measured flowers suggested potential occurrence of “autonomous selfing” in these flowers. Most of the examined individuals in both populations are self-incompatible and have to depend on insects for pollination. However, a few of them were found to be self-compatible. Flies were the effective outcrossing pollinators in the high altitude population and “autonomous selfing” was detected in a few individuals of this population. In contrast, the effective outcrossing pollinators were rarely observed in the low altitude population and the dominant visitors or pollinators, ants in this population, transferred pollen within the single flower, which finally resulted in “facilitated selfing”. Pollination limitations were obvious in both populations due to the lack of enough outcrossing pollinators. Two different selfing mechanisms, uncovered here, may provide a partial compensation for the natural reproduction of this alpine species in the arid alpine habitats when flowering at the early summer. Edited July 27, 2012 by whitewind 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
