Phenotypic Characteristics and Fatty Acid Composition of Seeds from Different Herbaceous Peony Species Native to China

Abstract

Herbaceous peony has been widely cultivated in China due to its substantial ornamental and medicinal value. In the present study, the phenotypic characteristics, total fatty acid (FA) content, and nine FA compositions of herbaceous peony seeds from 14 populations belonging to six species and one subspecies were determined by normal test and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The results showed that the phenotypic characteristics of seeds varied dramatically among species. The concentrations of five major FAs in seed oils were as follows: linoleic acid (173.95–236.51 μg/mg), linolenic acid (227.82–302.71 μg/mg), oleic acid (135.32–208.81 μg/mg), stearic acid (6.52–11.7 μg/mg), and palmitic acid (30.67–47.64 μg/mg). Correlation analysis demonstrated that oleic acid had the highest partial correlation coefficient with total FAs and might be applied to develop a model of phenotypic characteristics. FAs were significantly influenced by the following environmental factors: latitude, elevation, and annual average temperature. Based on the FA levels in the seed oils, clustering analysis divided 14 populations into two clusters. It was found that the average contents of oleic acid, linoleic acid, and total FAs in cluster I (147.16 μg/mg, 200.31 μg/mg, and 671.24 μg/mg, respectively) were significantly lower than those in cluster II (196.65 μg/mg, 220.16 μg/mg, and 741.78 μg/mg, respectively). Cluster I was perfectly consistent with subsect. Foliolatae, while cluster II was in good agreement with subsect. Dissectifoliae. Therefore, the FA composition of wild herbaceous peony seed oil might be used as a chemotaxonomic marker.

Variation of floral volatiles and fragrance reveals the phylogenetic relationship among nine wild tree peony species

“…Recently, a cluster of fatty acid contents in Sect. Paeonia seed oils related to geographical distribution has been implemented, and the results showed that two clusters had significant differences in longitude and altitude . It has also been accepted that the accumulation of secondary metabolites in fruits was affected by cultivation region with different climates and environmental features .…”

Evaluating the Comprehensive Performance of Herbaceous Peonies at low latitudes by the Integration of Long-running Quantitative Observation and Multi-Criteria Decision Making Approach

“…In this study, the index of “Ornamental values ( B 1 )” was assigned the highest weight in the constrained layer, and most of the indices under B 1 were directly related to the ornamental value of the flower (Supplementary Tables S23, S33 and S34). These results are reasonable because the purpose of this study was to transport the peony to a more southern area as a landscape plant but not as a medicinal, edible or oil plant 54,55 . The flower is the most important ornamental organ of the peony and should definitely receive considerable attention 41 (Fig.…”

Insights into the Phytochemical Composition and Bioactivities of Seeds from Wild Peony Species

“…Groups 5 and 6 have relatively similar geographic factors. In our previous research, we found that myristoleic acid in peony seed oil had a significant positive correlation with annual rainfall and latitude, and 1000-seed weight of peony seed was increased remarkably with the increasing latitude [ 6 ]. However, there is no obvious regularity between the three geographic factors and the phytochemicals.…”