The Assessment and the Within-Plant Variation of the Morpho-Physiological Traits and VOCs Profile in Endemic and Rare Salvia ceratophylloides Ard. (Lamiaceae)

Abstract

Salvia ceratophylloides (Ard.) is an endemic and rare plant species recently rediscovered as very few individuals at two different Southern Italy sites. The study of within-plant variation is fundamental to understand the plant adaptation to the local conditions, especially in rare species, and consequently to preserve plant biodiversity. Here, we reported the variation of the morpho-ecophysiological and metabolic traits between the sessile and petiolate leaf of S. ceratophylloides plants at two different sites for understanding the adaptation strategies for surviving in these habitats. The S. ceratophylloides individuals exhibited different net photosynthetic rate, maximum quantum yield, light intensity for the saturation of the photosynthetic machinery, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, leaf area, fractal dimension, and some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) between the different leaf types. This within-plant morpho-physiological and metabolic variation was dependent on the site. These results provide empirical evidence of sharply within-plant variation of the morpho-physiological traits and VOCs profiles in S. ceratophylloides, explaining the adaptation to the local conditions.

Analysis of the Population Structure and Dynamic of Endemic Salvia ceratophylloides Ard. (Lamiaceae)

“…Mowing damages adult individuals, often represented by large branched plants 0.5-1 m high, while avoiding very young individuals (S, JI), which grow close to the ground (Figure 3). Although the species was not eaten by animals, due to the presence of essential oils [66], young individuals were negatively affected by the presence of grazing [67]. Trampling caused by ungulates [Capra hircus (L., 1758) and Ovis aries (L., 1758)], irreparably damages the seedlings.…”

Ethnobotany of the Himalayas: Safeguarding Medical Practices and Traditional Uses of Kashmir Regions

“…Lamiaceae members (236 genera composed of 6900-7200 different taxa) reported to have a different aromatic (volatile, essential oils, coupled with terpenoids, phenolics, alkaloids and flavonoids) bearing plant taxa [195][196][197] and almost all of them were found to have applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries for the development of valueadded flavor and fragrance products useful for human healthcare [1,[198][199][200]. The chemical GC/MS investigation of different species indicated the presence of valuable constituents of monoterpene hydrocarbons, oxygenated monoterpenes, sesquiterpene hydrocarbons, oxygenated sesquiterpenes and diterpenes, phenylpropanoids and several non-terpene derivatives, which includes high value constituents such as citral, eugenol, geraniol, menthol, α-phellandrene, o-cymene, limonene, eucalyptol, methyl chavicol, linalool, camphor, chavicol, α-cubebene, α-copaene, β-cubebene, β-caryophyllene, α-humulene, γ-muurolene, germacrene D, β-bisabolene, γ-cadinene, thymol and various other phytoconstituents, and these are employed to make cosmetic products, perfumes, flavoring ingredients and medicines [139][140][141][142]201].…”

<i>Anthyllis hermanniae</i> L. subsp. <i>brutia</i> Brullo &#x26; Giusso (Fabaceae): population survey and conservation tasks

“…Despite a long history of scientific investigation, still today new botanical knowledge is fairly regularly added. This new information covers several aspects of botanical knowledge, such as taxonomy [10,25], flora [12,17,18,25], vegetation [3,19,44], ethnobotany [20,21,22], phytotoponyms [35,36], geographic distribution with focus on rare native [39,11] or endemic [4,28,29,38,43] plant species. Even the knowledge about alien and invasive plant species is rapidly increasing for this territory [16,24,25,33,37,40].…”