• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.301-307
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• 2011

The medicinal herb Oldenlandia diffusa is known as a folk medicine for the treatment of hepatitis, sore throat, appendicitis, malignant tumors and urethral infection in Southern China and Korea. Another species O. corymbosa, is also used for the therapy of the similar conditions, however, only O. diffusa is referred to the medicinal herb by Chinese Pharmacopoeia. Due to their similar morphology, O. diffusa and O. corymbosa are often misidentified. To easily identify O. diffusa from O. corymbosa, the phylogenetic utility of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) internal transcribed spacers (ITS) were investigated among different O. diffusa and O. corymbosa populations in Korea. The nrDNA ITS sequence of O. diffusa contained 791 bp, with GenBank accession number of JF837601-JF837602. The nrDNA ITS sequence of O. corymbosa was 785-786 bp, with GenBank accession number of JF837603-JF837611. The results showed that there are some certain divergences in the ITS region sequence between both species, even among different populations of the same species. Particularly, O. corymbosa ST-4 population showed the highest dissimilarity of the ITS region sequence with other nine populations of O. corymbosa and two populations of O. diffusa. This consequence makes us further understand the molecular diversification between O. corymbosa and O. diffusa, and help to promote the correct use and safety.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.145-152
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• 2010

The external morphological characters of the Korean Oldenlandia were reviewed, and numerical analysis of 25 quantitative characters carried out to evaluate the delimitation of the taxa. Among the qualitative characters, the leaf shape, inflorescence, pilose of insde corolla, expansion of capsule apex, and seed shape were used to delimit 5 species of Korean Oldenlandia. As the result of principal component analysis of quantitative characters, O. corymbosa, O. hirsuta and O. strigulosa were evidently separated on a two-dimensional plot by PC1 and PC2, and O. brachypoda and O. diffusa slightly overlapped. However, O. brachypoda was distinctly delimited from O. diffusa by the shape of calyx lobe, the lengths of pedicel, filament and stigma. Also each of those two species was in a group of its own by cluster analysis.