Herbal medicine use is widely popular in Canada, in part because of growing interest in health promotion and folk healing in the general population, disenchantment with some biomedical therapies, and public awareness of herbal remedies due to advertising and media reports. Many therapeutic herbs are gathered from their natural habitats; few are widely cultivated. In addition, some consumers exp...

Although applied over extremely short timescales, artificial selection has dramatically altered the form, physiology, and life history of cultivated plants. We have used RNAseq to define both gene sequence and expression divergence between cultivated tomato and five related wild species. Based on sequence differences, we detect footprints of positive selection in over 50 genes. We also document...

Knowledge about the induced pathogen resistance of plants is rapidly increasing, but little information exists on its dependence on abiotic growing conditions. Arabidopsis thaliana plants that had been cultivated under different nitrogen regimes were treated with BION ® , a chemical resistance elicitor. The activities of three enzyme classes functionally involved in resistance (chitinase, chito...

This study represents the investigation of the essential oil of Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton, Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton var. crispa f. viridis, Perilla ocymoides L. var. bicolorlaciniata leaves collected at full flowering stage in August 2007, in Lithuania. As biogenesis and composition of essential oil depends on geographical location, environmental factors, plants with same chemotype...

Since L. Guignari's investigation (1884) various investigators have reported the studies on plants in the genus Allium of Liliaceae, as some species in this genus are cultivated and are noteworthy from the cytological point of view. According to T. Suto's papers (1936, 1936) on the phylogenetic discussion of Liliaceae and Amaryllidaceae, which show the fact that the idiogram type of the chromos...

BACKGROUND Wild ginseng, Panax ginseng Meyer, is an endangered species of medicinal plants. In the present study, we analyzed variations within the ribosomal DNA (rDNA) cluster to gain insight into the genetic diversity of the Oriental ginseng, P. ginseng, at artificial plant cultivation. METHODS The roots of wild P. ginseng plants were sampled from a nonprotected natural population of the Ru...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of sowing procedures and the seed sowing rate of kudzu (Pueraria phaseoloides cv. ‘Comum’) in corn on corn plant development, forage dry matter production, weed infestation and soybean plant development and yield. The kudzu seeds were either broadcasted over the terrain or sown in furrows (in the main plots) at rates, in both cases, of 400...

Background Plant biodiversity studies have been performed in the Migliarino-San Rossore-Massaciuccoli Regional Park in Tuscany (Italy) within the framework of the European project LIFE08 NAT/IT/342.This project aims at developing a quick monitoring index (QMI) to rapidly assess the potential risk generated by transgenic plants in characterized ecosystems or biotopes. For this reason test areas ...

Filamentous fungi able to hydrolyse inulin have been isolated from the rhizosphere of plants whose roots contain this polysaccharide. This study reports results concerning the isolation and identification of filamentous fungi from the soil used for sunflower cultivation and from the sunflower rhizosphere cultivated in field and in greenhouse. Fungi were evaluated according to their capacity to ...

Accumulation of information about natural hybridization between GM soybean (Glycine max) and wild soybean (Glycine soja) is required for risk assessment evaluation and to establish biosafety regulations in Japan. This is particularly important in areas where wild relatives of cultivated soybean are grown (i.e. East Asia including Japan). To collect information on temporal and spatial factors af...