investigation of the changes in the amount of the secondary essential of hypericin in hypericum perforatum l. in different highlands of golestan national park, iran

in the present study, the tangrah region located in the vicinity of golestannational park was selected for exploring the changes in the amount of the secondaryessential of hypericin in hypericum perforatum in different highlands of the easterngolestan province. the aerial flowered parts of the herb were collected randomly and inthree replications from four altitudes of 300 m, 600 m, 900 m, and 1200 m in june (5-12)2011, and dried in the open air, with their methanol essential being extracted using coldmaceration method. the hplc method was also used to determine the amount ofhypericin samples. the variances of the obtained data were analyzed in f-test by using thespss software package. in addition, the means were compared by means of lsd. theresults revealed that the amount of hypericin extracted at the altitudes of 300 m, 600 m,900 m, and 1200 m were 1.903 mg/g, 1.393 mg/g, 1.710 mg/g, and 2.107 m g/g,respectively, so that the altitude of 1200 m recorded the greatest amount (2.107 mg/g)while the altitude of 600 m represented the smallest amount (1.393 mg/g). the statisticalanalyses showed that there is a significant difference between the altitude of 600 m and thealtitudes of 300 m and 1200 m in the amount of observed hypericin (p>0.1), whereas nosignificant difference was observed between the altitude of 300 m and that of 1200 m.moreover, there was no correlation between soil characteristics percentage despite theincrease in the hypericin at different highlands.