Medlar and hawthorn genotypes were analyzed and also their individual organic acids, in order to better understand their use as functional foods, but also as ingredients in pharmaceutical, nutritional products and in medicine. HPLC analysis was carried out using a Surveyor Thermo Electron system. Ascorbic, oxalic, tartric, malic, citric, succinic and fumaric acids were detected. On average, malic acid was predominant with a range of 415.08 mg/100 g FW in Mespilus germanica and 1,128.68 mg/100 g FW in Crataegus pentagyna. The order of organic acid depending on their content/100 g FW was: for Mespilus germanica - malic > tartric > oxalic > citric > fumaric > ascorbic > succinic; for Crataegus monogyna - malic > oxalic > citric > succinic >tartric > ascorbic > fumaric; for Crataegus pentagyna - malic > citric > oxalic > succinic >tartric > ascorbic > fumaric. The data obtained in this study do confirm that medlar and hawthorn fruits are a rich source of organic acid, and their organic acid content within the 100 g was greater than human daily consumption for this required level.

Fruits of wild fruit species are considered healthy foods with the potential to treat and prevent chronic diseases. In recent years, the food industry and consumers have become increasingly interested in the nutritional value and safety of food and ingredients. A traditional method of processing fruits from spontaneous flora is in the form of vinegar by simple and easy techniques. The aim of this paper was to analyze the chemical composition of homemade vinegars obtained by traditional methods from the fruits of some wild fruit species, compared with commercial vinegars. To evaluate the characteristics of the two types of vinegar, analyses were performed regarding the physicochemical properties (density, soluble dry matter, total titratable acidity, and pH) and the content of phenolic compounds using HPLC. In terms of pH, it varied between 2.58 and 3.67 for homemade vinegar and between 2.22 and 2.86 for commercial vinegar. The density of vinegar varied between 1015 and 1070 kg/m3 in the case of homemade vinegar and between 1013 and 1030 kg/m3 in the case of commercial vinegar. The phenolic compounds, gallic acid, neochlorogenic acid, catechin hydrate, chlorogenic acid, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, syringic acid, epicatechin, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, sinapic acid, salicylic acid, ellagic acid, rutin, and myricetin were found in homemade vinegar. Fewer phenolic compounds were identified in commercial vinegars. The data obtained highlight the high quality of homemade traditional vinegars compared with commercial ones. The biochemical composition of vinegars traditionally obtained from wild fruits, through simple recipes, demonstrates their role and importance for human well-being and the potentially beneficial effects on health.

Plant parts of some spontaneous fruit species were analyzed by HPLC-UV method to determine their content in phenolic compounds. Buds, leaves, flowers, and fruits were harvested from 11 wild fruit species of medicinal, food, and therapeutic interest: European crab apple, European wild pear, blackthorn, dog rose, elder, dewberry, wild blackberry, cornelian cherry, red hawthorn, black hawthorn, and green strawberry. The studied species were analyzed for the presence and amount of phenolic compounds: flavonoids from the subclasses flavanols (catechin hydrate and epicatechin) and flavonols (rutin, myricetin, quercetin, and kaempferol) together with phenolic acids belonging to the hydroxybenzoic acid subclass (ellagic, gallic, syringic, vanillic, and salicylic) and hydroxycinnamic acids (caffeic, ferulic, sinapic, p-coumaric, neochlorogenic, and chlorogenic). The obtained results confirm the presence of bioactive compounds in different plant parts in wild fruit species. The variability identified from one species to another, the different compositions of phenols within the species, provides useful data on the role of these plant parts in the human body.

Vegetation phenology is considered an important biological indicator in understanding the behaviour of ecosystems and how it responds to environmental cues. The aim of this paper is to provide information on the variability of phenological behaviours based on discriminant analysis using the R software package with the following libraries: ggplot2, heplots, candisc, MASS, car, and klaR. Three phenological phases were analysed with eight wild fruit tree species from a forest ecosystem in the southwestern part of Romania (44°05′19.5” N 23°54′03.5” E). It was found that there is a large and very large variability for the “bud burst” phenophase, medium and low for “full flowering”, and reduced for the “all petals fallen” phenophase. For the analyzed data, the discriminant analysis model has high accuracy (accuracy: 0.9583; 95% CI: (0.7888, 0.9989). Partition plots show the results of “full flowering” and “all petals fallen” as a function of the “bud burst” of pockmarks when separated into eight clusters and eight clusters of “full flowering” as a function of “all petals fallen”. The differences observed, from a phenological point of view, are not only due to the different cold requirements of these species but also to the temperatures during the spring.

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