Foeniculum vulgare Miller, (fennel) (Umbelliferae) is an annual, biennial or perennial aromatic herb, depending on the variety, and has been known since antiquity in Europe and Asia Minor. The leaves, stalks and seeds (fruits) of the plant are edible1. Extracts of the Foeniculum vulgare Miller (fennel) seeds are used in traditional Turkish medicine as an anti-inflammatory agent 2. The anti-infl...

background and objectives: essential oils are very complex mixture of components and their composition may vary in different species or varieties or even within the same variety. origanum vulgare l. subsp. vulgare is one of the most distributed subspecies within the genus origanum and has been found to be a poor-oil, categorized in cymyl, bornane or sabinyl chemotypes with higher proportion of ...

BACKGROUND The key enzyme in the process of melanin biosynthesis is tyrosinase. Skin hyperpigmentation and browning of foods are undesirable phenomena which tyrosinase represents. Therefore, tyrosinase inhibitors have been used increasingly for medicinal and cosmetic products. OBJECTIVES In this study, inhibitory effects of four plants including: physalis alkekengi L., Alcea rosea L., Bunium ...

We investigated the possibility of use of Tanacetum vulgare (tansy) as an ecological indicator of metal concentration in a naturally colonized open-pit lignite mine in Bełchatów (Poland). Tanacetum vulgare is the only species growing abundantly and spontaneously in the lignite mine waste dumps. Metal concentrations in roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and soil were measured in dump sites differing...

In this study, we isolated scopoletin from Cirsium setidens Nakai (Compositae) and tested its effects on melanogenesis. Scopoletin was not toxic to cells at concentrations less than 50 µM and increased melanin synthesis in a dose-dependent manner. As melanin synthesis increased, scopoletin stimulated the total tyrosinase activity, the rate-limiting enzyme of melanogenesis. In a cell-free system...

The majority of herbivorous insects are specialized feeders restricted to a plant family, genus, or species. The evolution of specialized insect-plant interactions is generally considered to be a result of trade-offs in fitness between possible hosts. Through the course of natural selection, host plants that maximize insect fitness should result in optimal, specialized, insect-plant association...

The present study was carried out to evaluate the antimicrobial potential of Artemisia sieversiana Ehrhart. Ex. Willd. (Asteraceae) and Origanum vulgare L. (Lamiaceae) from their extracts. Solvent ether, petroleum ether, chloroform, acetone, ethanol, benzene and aqueous extracts were tested against the test organisms viz., Bacterial strains (Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis) and fungal st...

Chemical property of honey from Echium vulgare was investigated. In comparison with other honey species, the contents of total phenolic compounds and total flavonoids were the highest. α-Amylase activity was also extremely high: about three to nine hundred times as much as those of other honey species. The antioxidative activity of honey was investigated using four different methods. Honey from...

Rhinocyllus conicus, a weevil introduced for biological control of exotic weeds, has had major nontarget ecological effects on native thistles. Some practitioners have argued that this is an isolated case. We report, however, that another Eurasian weevil (Larinus planus), currently being distributed in North America for the control of Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), is significantly reducing ...