The biophysical environment is an important determinant of land degradation in both commercial and communal land tenure systems in South Africa. According to a recent study on the status of land degradation, approximately 25% of the total land cover in South Africa is degraded. Several technologies exist to restore the soil and vegetation degraded areas in natural pastures. To improve the produ...

A new natural coumarin, angepubebisin (1), and a new furan, angepubefurin (2), together with the five known compounds, umbelliferone, angelol B (3), ulopterol (4), peucedanol (5), and scopoletin, were isolated from the roots of Angelica pubescens Maxim. f. biserrata Shan et Yuan. The structures of angepubebisin (1) and known compounds were determined by spectroscopic methods, including IR, UV, ...

Lectotypes are designated for four species epithets, including one second-step lectotypification, under the family Gesneriaceae Rich. & Juss., viz., Cyananthus umbrosa Griff., Didymocarpus griffithii Wight, Lysionotus pubescens C.B.Clarke and Petrocosmea parryorum C.E.C.Fisch., along with detailed notes on their typification.

Pterodon (Fabaceae) species known as “sucupira-branca” are traditionally used in Brazilian medicine. This South American monophyletic genus has delimitation problems. To separate the recognized we described wood anatomy of P. abruptus, emarginatus, pubescens, hybrid (between emarginatus and pubescens) apparicioi, latter two for first time. Wood anatomical studies were undertaken, qualitative qu...

background: thymus is a widely used medicinal plant in food and pharmaceutical industries. among different species of thymus, t. vulgaris is used more than other species in therapeutic dosage forms. objective: this study was conducted to differentiate various thymus species by tlc fingerprint. methods: in order to identify and differentiate various species of thymus, tlc fingerprints of essenti...

A revision of Gonolobus s.s. (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae: Gonolobinae) in the West Indies is provided based on recent evidence of support for the monophyly of the genus from molecular and morphological data. Ten species are recognized (eight endemic to a single island each). Keys, descriptions, and illustrations are provided for all ten species. The conservation status of each species is prov...

Two novel chitin-binding peptides, designated Pp-AMP 1 and Pp-AMP 2, which had antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria and fungi, were purified from Japanese bamboo shoots (Phyllostachys pubescens) by a simple procedure based on chitin affinity chromatography. They had the common structural features of the plant defensin family, but they could not be grouped in any type of that famil...

A new species of the carpenter bee genus Xylocopa Latreille (Xylocopinae: Xylocopini) is described and figured from two localities in southern Saudi Arabia. Xylocopa (Koptortosoma) sarawatica Engel, sp. n. is a relatively small species similar to the widespread X. pubescens Spinola, but differs in the extent of maculation in males, setal coloration of both sexes, and male terminalia. A revised ...