STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine the content of the hallucinogen salvinorin A in a variety of Salvia divinorum herbal products and to compare the content with the label claims of potency and purity. DESIGN Laboratory analysis. SETTING University-affiliated laboratory. SAMPLES Five herbal products containing Salvia divinorum. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS The samples were purchased from the ...

From the aerial parts of Salvia occidentalis (Labiatae) a new diterpenoid with a rearranged neo-clerodane skeleton was isolated. This new compound was named salvioccidentalin and its structure was established by spectroscopic means. A probable biogenetic relationship with salvigenolide from S. fulgens and salvileucalin A and spiroleucantholide from Salvia leucantha is proposed.

In 1890, Salvia freyniana Bornm., an endemic species of Turkey, was first collected and described by J.F. Bornmueller in 1892. While revising the genus occurring in Turkey based on specimens collected from Yenipazar, south of Yozgat (Turkey in 1892), it was discovered once again in 2006. The diagnostic morphological characters of this rare endemic species are discussed. Details of fruiting mate...

BACKGROUND Hepatic fibrosis is characterised by a progressive accumulation of fibrillar extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, including collagen that occurs in chronic liver diseases. Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta)/Smad3 signalling plays a major role in tissue fibrogenesis acting as a potent stimulus of ECM accumulation. AIM To evaluate the effects of a combined therapy with anti-...

Salvia miltiorrhiza, which is commonly known as Danshen, is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine. To illustrate its physiological and biochemical responses to salt stress and to evaluate the feasibility of cultivating this plant in saline coastal soils, a factorial experiment under hydroponic conditions was arranged on the basis of a completely randomised design with three replications. Five s...

Salvia miltiorrhiza is an important medicinal plant with great economic and medicinal value. The complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence of Salvia miltiorrhiza, the first sequenced member of the Lamiaceae family, is reported here. The genome is 151,328 bp in length and exhibits a typical quadripartite structure of the large (LSC, 82,695 bp) and small (SSC, 17,555 bp) single-copy regions, sepa...

The land snail Cernuella virgata (da Costa, 1778) is widely considered as a pest to be quarantined in most countries. In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of Cernuella virgata is published. The mitochondrial genome has a length of 14,147 bp a DNA base composition of 29.07% A, 36.88% T, 15.59% C and 18.46% G, encoding 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes and t...