فهرست مطالب m. h. mirjalili

Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium (L.) Schults-bip.) is a perennial medicinal plant from Asteraceae family and a rich source of sesquiterpene lactone parthenolide with anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasm, and especially anti-migraine properties. In this study, the aerial parts of five wild populations of this plant were harvested from Mazandaran (Marzanabad, Siah Bisheh, and Valiabad) and Tehran (Ahar and Gachsar) provinces at full flowering stage in 2020 to evaluate their morphological traits and parthenolide content. The results showed a significant difference at 1% probability level among the studied populations for all the traits. The highest plant height (130 cm), flower dry weight (8.60 g.plant-1), and parthenolide content (0.33 mg.g-1 dry weight) were observed in Gachsar, Siah Bisheh, and Marzanabad populations, respectively. Parthenolide content correlated with leaf length, number of lateral branches, and crown diameter negatively and with number of capitols positively and significantly at 5% probability level. Cluster analysis put the feverfew populations in two main groups. Principal coordinate analysis showed that the first three factors could explain 93.06% of the total variance. Overall, the results indicated the existence of high diversity in feverfew populations for use in breeding programs and cultivation and domestication of this species.

The morphological, yield, and phytochemical characteristics of Solidago virgaurea L. were studied at the full flowering stage in two habitats of Pol Sefid and Sang Deh in Mazandaran province in 2019. The traits including plant height, plant diameter, inflorescence length, number of stems, length and leaf width, length and ray floret width, tubular floret length, flower diameter, receptacle diameter, stem diameter, fresh and plant dry weight, fresh and leaf dry weight, fresh and stem dry weight, fresh and leaf+flower dry weight, and total phenols (by Folin-Ciocalteu method), flavonoids (by aluminum chloride method), and leiocarposide (by HPLC) contents were measured. The results showed that the highest amounts of inflorescence length (40 cm), flower diameter (21.1 mm), plant dry weight (9.44 g plant-1), flower dry weight (6.06 g plant-1), flower+leaf dry weight (7.22 g plant-1), and stem dry weight (2.22 g plant-1) were obtained in the population "Pol Sefid". A positive and significant correlation was observed between the plant dry weight and traits including the plant height, number of stems, stem diameter, flower diameter, plant fresh weight, fresh and leaf dry weight, fresh and stem dry weight, fresh and leaf+flower dry weight, and total flavonoids. The content of total phenols (26.95 mg Gallic acid/g DW), total flavonoids (8.82 mg Rutin/g DW), and leiocarposide (2.08 mg/g DW) was higher in the population "Sang Deh" than "Pol Sefid".

In this study, the diversity of morphological traits of needle in male and female yew (Taxus baccata L.) along the topographic and longitude gradients in the Hyrcanian forests was studied. To this aim, a total of 580 needles from 58 trees were measured in three sites (Amlash, Gazu and Afratakhteh) along the longitudinal gradient of the Hyrcanian forests. A hierarchical or nested analysis of variance was used to assess influencing sex and site on the 6 measured morphological traits of needles. In addition, Duncan's test was used for multiple comparisons of means. Furthermore, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to determine the most important traits and environmental factors in differing sites. Results showed that variation of morphological traits of yew needles is only affected by site factor. However, the influence of sex was not significantly assessed. Results also showed that most morphological traits of yew needles except the form factor were highest in Gazu site that comprised moderate slopes, northern aspects, faced northern humid air and experienced higher growing season due to lower elevation. Generally, morphological traits of yew needles were lowest in Amlash site, which included steep slopes (loss of soil depth) and western aspects (decrease in relative humidity). Yew trees in Afratakhteh site showed intermediate values. Our results imply that sites with cool summers and higher relative air humidity (settling in the humid northern valleys) provide more favorable growth conditions to morphological traits of yew needles compared with sites with higher average annual rainfall across the Hyrcanian forests.

number of sub leaves (leaves on sub-branches), number of internodes on main stems, number of lateral stems, spike length on the main panicle, number of spikes, number of flowers per panicle, fresh and dry weight of aerial parts, fresh and dry weight of roots, root length, leaf area, internode length, total phenol content, total flavonoids content, antioxidant activity, total sugar content and chlorophyll quality were measured. The results of the analysis of variance showed that the studied treatments had a significant effect on all traits except the number of main leaves, the number of internodes on main stems, and root length. The means comparison showed that with increasing the concentration and period of colchicine application, height of aerial parts, internode length, the number of flowers per panicle, and total sugar content decreased and spike length on the main panicle and total phenol content increased. Based on the results of flow cytometric analysis, the mean genome size was 0.73 pg in plants treated with colchicine at a concentration of 0.4% for 48 hours, while the mean genome size in the control plants was 0.55 pg. Plants in other treatments showed a mean genome size of 0.57. In general, the results of this experiment showed a positive response of L. stricta to colchicine for the induction of polyploidy and the possibility of using this method in the future breeding of this plant.

Betulinic acid (BA), oleanolic acid (OA) and ursolic acid (UA) are well-known pentacyclic triterpenoids (PTs), which are produced by plants. They possess a variety of beneficial effects including anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antitumor, anti-HIV, antimicrobial, gastroprotective, and antihyperlipidemic activities. In the present study, quantitative determination of these compounds was simultaneously carried out in some Thymus species native to Iran i.e. T. daenensis, T. pubescens, T. persicus and T. caramanicus.

Lyophilized and powdered plant material (1.0 g) was drenched in MeOH and immediately sonicated at room temperature. The methanol extract was further separated into organic and aqueous layers. The organic layer was dissolved in HPLC grade methanol, filtered and analyzed by reverse-phase HPLC.

The maximum content of BA, OA and UA were determined in the aerial parts of T. persicus as856.9, 480.6 and 941.7 mg per 100 g dry weight (DW) of plant, respectively while the other Thymus species had an almost negligible amount of these compounds.

Results showed that the aerial parts of T. persicus could be a considerable source of these PTs which might be attractive for future phytochemical and biological investigations according to importance of their health benefits.

Thymus persicus is an endemic species of the genus Thymus (Lamiaceae) which grows in Zanjan and West Azerbaijan (Takab) provinces of Iran. Among the Iranian Thymus species, T. persicus is well differentiated by having the smallest leaf width among Thymus species with long non-glandular and short glandular hairs. In order to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships of the T. persicus and T. marandensis Jamzad, the recently and assumed related species to T. brachychilus Jalas and T. leucotrichus Hal., a molecular analysis based on nrDNA ITS sequences of 25 accessions belonging to 19 species of Thymus together with representatives of genera Origanum, Thymbra, Satureja, Micromeria, Gontscharovia, Ziziphora, Saccocalyx and Zataria was performed. The results of phylogenetic analysis showed that the genus Thymus is paraphyletic when the monotypic genus Saccocalyx is included and its sister relationship with Origanum was confirmed. While the phylogenetic position of T. persicus among the other taxa of Thymus is appeared unresolved. T. marandensis turned out to be the sister to a group of Thymus species including T. carmanicus, T. migricus, T. pubescens, T. trautvetteri and T. daenensis.