BACKGROUND AND AIMS Comparative studies of closely related taxa can increase understanding of adaptations and changes in seed dormancy and germination preferences in an evolutionary perspective. For such studies, a method to describe and compare the performance of taxa in a general way is needed. The germination ecology of four Papaver taxa was studied with the aim of describing and comparing t...

Background and objectives: Plants have been used to treat diseases like cancer for many years and today the trend towards their use is increasing. One of the most effective mechanisms of plants against cancer is inducing apoptosis. Apoptosis is a programmed cell death which acts opposite to cell division. It starts in response to some stimuli. Despite the effectiveness of apopt...

A new acylated triterpene together with prunasin, (-)-epicatechin, daucosterol, and three triterpenes, ursolic, oleanolic, and pomolic acids was isolated from the root of Chaenomeles japonica (THUNB.) LINDL. (Rosaceae) and determined to be 3-O-(E)-3, 5-dihydroxycinnamoylursolic acid on the basis of NMR and FAB-MS experiments.

The structures of two new dimeric acridone alkaloids, glycobismine-D (1) and -E (2), having a novel linkage as binary acridones, three monomeric acridones, glycocitrine-IV (3), -V (4), and -VI (5), and three quinolone alkaloids, glycocitlone-A (6), -B (7), and -C (8) from Glycosmis citrifolia (Willd.) Lindl. (Rutaceae) have been elucidated by spectrometric studies.

(1) Neighbourhood experiments were used to compare the magnitudes of competitive effect and competitive response using all pairwise combinations of Papaver rhoeas, Triticum aestivum and Avena sativa as neighbour species, and these three species plus Chenopodium album as target species. (2) Over 79% of the variance in target weight was explained by a simple hyperbolic function of neighbour weigh...