Biol. Pharm. Bull. 30(1) 165—168 (2007)

virtually all cultures as a source of medicine. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) are used by a huge majority of people in China and other countries for curing various diseases. These TCMs have served as a source of alternative medicines, new pharmaceuticals, and healthcare products. Gorman drew attention to the power of Chinese folk medicinal potions in treating maladies from eczema and malaria to respiratory disorders. TCMs are highly complex, being composed of many herbal contents. The multiherbal compositions of TCMs however, create analytical problems in terms of quality control. Previously, the quality control of herbal medicines was controlled solely on the basis of one or a few constituents. However, basic information on many herbal medicines is lacking. Due to this acceptance or competition of TCMs in western medical markets seems to be difficult and problematic. Maintaining quality standards is a basic requirement for a drug to competitive and trusted in the marketplace. Therefore, there is a need to develop a method to monitor the total quality of TCMs in an efficient way. Fingerprint analysis is a protocol that provides chemical information, including chromatograms, spectrograms and other graphic representation of analytical data. This technique is more effective for comparing and evaluating quality control of drugs. Such fingerprints have been used in different drug studies and hence proved to be a valuable informative tool for quality control. The TCM herb Clematis huchouensis TAMURA (CHT) belongs to the family Ranunculaceae which is distributed in Zhejiang, Hunan, Jiangsu and Jianxi provinces of China. TCM prepared from this herb has been used for rheumatoid arthritis. In folklore traditions, herbal preparations from this plant are considered to have anti-tumor/anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergy, antithrombotic, anti-mutagenic and other bioactivities in conjunction with other herbs. Due to its effective role as a TCM, it is being extensively researched. A key problem is how to display and control the total quality of a herbal medicine originating in different habitats and comprising many constituents with variable quantities and properties. It has flavonoids as its major compounds, which may be the reason for its effectiveness in the above-mentioned diseases, but flavonoids may be precursors of some toxics substances in photosynthesis and cellular energy transfer processes. Therefore, due to these variable and contrasting properties, flavonoids were selected in our study as quality control markers (QCM). As far as we know, no simple and reliable method has yet been developed for fingerprint analysis of extracts of CHT. The qualitative and quantitative eco-environmental effects on chemical constituents of plants were studied for herbal specimens originating from two habitats (Hangzhou and Jiangsu) using the parameters relative retention time (RRT) and relative peak area (RPA).