Darklight Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 One-a these days I must get myself a taxonomy book... any taxonomists out there?What's Ephedra related to? What, to the best of your knowledge is its most closely related commercial or ornamental crop? I don't even know where to start looking...TIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torsten Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 OK, this bugged me now. The words to search for is 'paleobotany' and 'coniferata'.The order to look for is 'gnetales', including the genera 'Gnetum' and 'Welwitscia'.Gingkoales, Coniferales and Taxales are separate orders and can be exluded from the 'close relatives'. (pity, cos there is heaps of info on Gingko).go here for a list of genera in the gnetales: http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/conifers/taxa.htm Ephedraceae has a single genus, so is the Gnetales (Gnetum = 30 species), and the Welwitschia has only a single species.Welwitschia happens to be a fruitcake of a species and may have just attracted enough horticultural interest to have som protocols floating around. http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/conifers/we...itschiaceae.htm Gnetum is also an interesting genus. Interesting and with a few endangered species, so that some work has alredy been done:(4) Augustine, A. C. and L. D'Souza. 1997. Somatic embryogenesis in Gnetum ula http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/conifers/gn...gn/gn/index.htm Failing all the above, I guess I would go look at Gingko anyway https://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=http://www.shaman-australis.com/ubb/wink.gif&key=4919fe9fb0297038d452b640b095bc279f8cc68a37fc8152fee24836b0d8f0df Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theobromos Posted June 7, 2002 Share Posted June 7, 2002 Gnetums are forest vines and Welwitschia is a hard desert plant with only two giant leaves. They are not very closely related, it was very easy for the botanists to distinguish them. Why not Ephedra, a commercially important plant with a little research done on tissue cultures?T. Watanabe, K. Kawaguchi, T. Yoshikawa, A. Takano, H. Kohda and K. J. Malla (1996). Studies on the medicinal plant resouces of the Himalayas (1), In vitro regeneration and alkaloid contents of Ephedra gerardiana Wall. Plant Tissue Culture Letters 13: 203-206. O'Dowd, N. A., McCauley, P. G., Wilson, G, Parnell, J. A. N., Kavanagh, T. A. K. and McConnell, D. J. (1998). Ephedra species: In Vitro Culture, Micropropagation, and the production of Ephedrine and other alkaloids. In: Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry 41, Medicine and Aromatic Plants X. Ed. Y. P. S. Bajaj. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York. 99 NAL Call. No.: 80 J825 In vitro micropropagation of Ephedra.O'Dowd, N.A.; Richardson, D.H.S.Ashford : Headley Brothers Ltd; 1993 Nov. The Journal of horticultural science v. 68 (6): p. 1013-1020; 1993 Nov. Includes references. Language: English Descriptors: Ephedra; In vitro culture; Micropropagation; Shoots; Explants; Culture techniques; Culture media; Rooting; Plant growth regulators KG Ramawat seems to have done some work on this, though none published on the web.Manjul Dhiman; Sushma Moitra; Singh MN; Bhatnagar SP; Dhiman M; Moitra S (Department of Botany, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, India.) Source: Current Science. 1998, 75:11, p1113-1115 , 14 ref. [English]. ISSN 0011-3891 Abstract: This report deals with responses obtained from different explants of Cycas, Zamia, and Ephedra foliata cultured on Murashige & Skoog medium with various plant growth regulators. 2,4-D and NAA were tested at various concentrations OF 0.1-10 and 0.5-2.0 micro M alone or in combination with BAP [benzyladenine] (1-5 micro M) or kinetin (1-5 micro M). The effects on callusing, somatic embryogenesis, shoot bud formation, and other responses, such as leaf-like and nodular structures, were observed in leaf explants of C. revoluta, C. rumphii, and Z. furfuracea, the female gametophyte of C. circinalis and Z. integrifolia, and embryos of C. circinalis. [This message has been edited by theobromos (edited 07 June 2002).] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darklight Posted June 7, 2002 Author Share Posted June 7, 2002 Theo, you're adorable https://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=&key=ed93ee4b8a158835e0af19ead9c794b11af03de360911f7858b9da338588c45dThat Bajaj series on my list of must-haves a while now, didn't know it had an ephedra ref https://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=&key=ed93ee4b8a158835e0af19ead9c794b11af03de360911f7858b9da338588c45dI've tried protocols from a couple of those refs and they haven't worked for setting roots, but the Bajaj one is new to me. And its prolly been four since I looked for refs so no wonder I missed those. I'll get onto it all ASAP cos they've been in the lab for yeeeears multiplying madly but not in any form good for planting out.Are you ever going to send me your addy so we can get you those housewarming presents? Or did you forget about it over XmasThanks again presh, hope you're well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darklight Posted June 10, 2002 Author Share Posted June 10, 2002 BTW theo, which search facility do you use to come up with these great refs...I've tried Agricola and Current Contents ( my document delivery service ) as well as the usual Googles and always come up with too many options most of which seem irrelevant.or are you the keyword king? https://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=&key=ed93ee4b8a158835e0af19ead9c794b11af03de360911f7858b9da338588c45d Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theobromos Posted June 11, 2002 Share Posted June 11, 2002 I haven´t forgotten but I may be getting a flat in town soon which will be easier houseplants. The countryside here is full of plastic greenhouses growing whitefly and fruit fly, and cucumber mosaic virus by the look of my West Indian Gherkin seedlings.I just used google with ephedra and tissue-culture as keywords. I am very quick at discarding the rubbish. I have learnt that hope is not much use when looking at webpages, best to only look at the really promising ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darklight Posted June 11, 2002 Author Share Posted June 11, 2002 What a difference a keyword makes. I type in 'tissue' and 'culture' as separate words and end up with all sorts of weird stuff, like lots of refs to plated bioassays for livers and brains. And I usually stop after the first 200 documentsThanx presh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theobromos Posted June 11, 2002 Share Posted June 11, 2002 My pleasure.If you want to ask questions of Dr O´Dowd (after reading the book, obviously) you could email her, see http://www.sfi.ie/content/content.asp?sect...3&language_id=1 You might find this one quicker to find and it sounds useful: O, D(owd, presumably). N. A. and D. H. S. Richardson (1993). In vitro organogenesis of Ephedra. Phytomorphology 43(1-2): 19-24. {a} Dep. Biol., Carleton Univ., 1125 Colonel Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada And you never know what might help: Caveney, S. and Starratt, A.N (1994) Glutamatergic signals in Ephedra. Nature 372, 509. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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