The plant remains

Approximately 600-700 species of Ipomoea, Convolvulaceae, are found throughout tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Several of those species have been used as ornamental plants, food, medicines or in religious ritual. The present work reviews the traditional uses, chemistry and biological activities of Ipomoea species and illustrates the potential of the genus as a source of therapeutic agents. These species are used in different parts of the world for the treatment of several diseases, such as, diabetes, hypertension, dysentery, constipation, fatigue, arthritis, rheumatism, hydrocephaly, meningitis, kidney ailments and inflammations. Some of these species showed antimicrobial, analgesic, spasmolitic, spasmogenic, hypoglycemic, hypotensive, anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory, psychotomimetic and anticancer activities. Alkaloids, phenolics compounds and glycolipids are the most common biologically active constituents from these plant extracts.

/pdf/review-of-the-genus-ipomoea-traditional-uses-chemistry-and-1hxu24isd7.pdf

Review of the genus Ipomoea: traditional uses, chemistry and biological activities

Most prairie restorations fail to produce the diversity of species found in unplowed remnants. This lack of restored diversity is hypothesized to be partly due to the inhibition of forb species by high seeding densities of dominant grasses and partly due to the low seeding densities of forbs used in many restorations. We tested this hypothesis by sowing various densities of forb and warm-season grass seeds into a restoration begun on bare soil. This is the first replicated restoration experiment we are aware of that varies grass seeding densities to examine the effects on forbs. Four years after seeding, we found that higher densities of grass seeds decreased forb cover, biomass, and richness, and higher densities of forb seeds increased forb richness. These results suggest that dominant grasses compete strongly with native forb species and that many forb species thrive when they are spatially separated from dominant grasses. The results also suggest that seed availability limits the establishment of some forbs. Forb diversity can therefore be increased by decreasing grass seeding density, by increasing forb seeding density, or both. However, forb seeds are generally expensive, and increasing forb seeding density across the entire area of a restoration may be prohibitively expensive. We therefore recommend a low seeding density of dominant grasses, and we recommend spatially separating forbs from dominant grasses by adding most forb seeds to areas with little to no dominant grasses and by adding the rest of the forb seeds to areas with a low density of dominant grasses.

/pdf/forb-species-establishment-increases-with-decreased-grass-32ctc9iv51.pdf

Forb Species Establishment Increases with Decreased Grass Seeding Density and with Increased Forb Seeding Density in a Northeast Kansas, U.S.A., Experimental Prairie Restoration

Antituberculosis potential of some ethnobotanically selected Malaysian plants

Using a multispecies seed sowing experiment, we investigated the roles of seed and microsite limitation in constraining the restoration of native prairie diversity and ecosystem function in an abandoned upland hayfield in northeastern Kansas. Seeds of 32 native and naturalized plant species from the regional pool were sown into undisturbed and experimentally disturbed field plots. After six growing seasons, experimental sowing led to major shifts in species and functional group composition, increases in native species abundance and floristic quality, declines in abundance of non-native species, and increases in plant diversity. These changes in community structure led to significant changes at the ecosystem level including increases in light capture, peak biomass, primary production, litter biomass, root biomass, and C storage in roots. Our findings reveal the importance of seed limitations in constraining the natural recovery of prairie vegetation, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning in this grassland and confirm broadcast sowing as a useful tool for the restoration of upland hayfield sites.

http://kindscher.faculty.ku.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Kindscher-Foster-Murphy-2007-Restoration.pdf

Restoration of Prairie Community Structure and Ecosystem Function in an Abandoned Hayfield: A Sowing Experiment

We undertook floristic studies of 104 grasslands in the tallgrass prairie region of Kansas to examine differences in the floristic quality of five common grassland management systems. The different grasslands were warm-season prairie hay meadows, warm-season native pastures, cool-season planted hay fields, cool-season planted pastures, and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) fields. We recorded 383 vascular plant taxa of which 79% were native and 21% were non-native. Species richness at our sites ranged from seven for a cool season pasture to 109 for a warm-season hay meadow. Our results show that warm-season hay meadows exhibit highest species richness (256 taxa) and are habitats for highly conservative native taxa, while degraded grasslands have a higher number of alien taxa (29% in cool season planted hay fields) and lower species richness (136 for cool season hay fields). We computed Floristic Quality Assessment Index (FQI) values, which ranged from 0.3 for a cool-season pasture to 41 for warm-season prairie hay meadows while modified FQI ranged from 0.09 for a cool-season pasture to 4.48 for a warm-season prairie hay meadow. FQI values across management types differed significantly from each other (p=0.000). We conclude that native prairie hay meadows are significant reservoirs of conservative grassland species. In addition, the FQI can be a useful tool for discerning effects of land management on grassland vegetation.

/pdf/floristic-quality-as-an-indicator-of-native-species-4txgw23cty.pdf

Floristic Quality as an Indicator of Native Species Diversity in Managed Grasslands

The Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology of Wild Tomatillos, Physalis longifolia Nutt., and Related Physalis Species: A Review. The wild tomatillo, Physalis longifolia Nutt., and related species have been important wild-harvested foods and medicinal plants. This paper reviews their traditional use as food and medicine; it also discusses taxonomic difficulties and provides information on recent medicinal chemistry discoveries within this and related species. Subtle morphological differences recognized by taxonomists to distinguish this species from closely related taxa can be confusing to botanists and ethnobotanists, and many of these differences are not considered to be important by indigenous people. Therefore, the food and medicinal uses reported here include information for P. longifolia, as well as uses for several related taxa found north of Mexico. The importance of wild Physalis species as food is reported by many tribes, and its long history of use is evidenced by frequent discovery in archaeological sites. These plants may have been cultivated, or “tended,” by Pueblo farmers and other tribes. The importance of this plant as medicine is made evident through its historical ethnobotanical use, information in recent literature on Physalis species pharmacology, and our Native Medicinal Plant Research Program’s recent discovery of 14 new natural products, some of which have potent anti-cancer activity.

The Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology of Wild Tomatillos, Physalis longifolia Nutt., and Related Physalis Species: A Review

The organic soluble extract from the leaves of the native North American prairie plant Ipomoea leptophylla (big root morning glory) showed in vitro activity against M. tuberculosis. Bioassay-guided fractionation of this extract resulted in the identification of two new resin glycosides (6, 7). Base-catalyzed hydrolysis of these glycosides gave operculinic acid (1) as the glycosidic acid component as well as trans-cinnamic acid, propanoic acid, and lauric acid. The complete structure elucidation was accomplished through derivatization, 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy (TOCSY, ROESY, HSQC, HMBC), and MS/MS experiments on 6 and 7 as well as the permethylated derivative 8.

Characterization of an anti-tuberculosis resin glycoside from the prairie medicinal plant Ipomoea leptophylla.

http://kindscher.faculty.ku.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Questad-Biodiversity-patterns-in-Managed-grasslands.pdf

Evaluating patterns of biodiversity in managed grasslands using spatial turnover metrics.

Land managers face the challenge of conserving medicinal plants that may be threatened by harvest pressure, often with limited biological information available to inform management decisions. Osha (Ligusticum porteri) is an important medicinal plant whose roots are harvested as an herbal remedy for flu, sore throat, and other illnesses. However, little is known about population structure, root production, or the capacity of osha to recover from harvest in different environmental contexts. We compared osha population structure and root production within a gradient of canopy cover from meadow to forested habitat. We experimentally harvested roots of mature osha plants and recorded osha recolonization of pits created by root harvest. Prior to harvest, the number and percent cover of reproductive plants and the number of flowering stems per plot were higher in the meadow than in forested habitat. Canopy cover had a significant negative relationship to these variables, suggesting that osha populations benefit from increased light availability. Average root weight per plant in meadow plots was three times higher than in forested plots. One year after harvest, the majority of all harvest pits across the canopy cover gradient were recolonized by osha. Our results suggest that osha population structure and root production are significantly influenced by canopy cover, but that plants have a high capacity for post-harvest recolonization under variable light conditions. These results demonstrate the need to account for environmental factors that influence population structure when addressing concerns about the overharvest of wild medicinal plants.

https://bioone.org/journals/natural-areas-journal/volume-37/issue-2/043.037.0207/Harvesting-and-Recolonization-of-Wild-Populations-of-Osh%c3%a1-Ligusticum-porteri/10.3375/043.037.0207.pdf

Hillary Loring

Papers

Floristic Quality as an Indicator of Native Species Diversity in Managed Grasslands

The Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology of Wild Tomatillos, Physalis longifolia Nutt., and Related Physalis Species: A Review

Characterization of an anti-tuberculosis resin glycoside from the prairie medicinal plant Ipomoea leptophylla.

Evaluating patterns of biodiversity in managed grasslands using spatial turnover metrics.

Harvesting and Recolonization of Wild Populations of Oshá (Ligusticum porteri) in Southern Colorado