Showing papers in "South African Journal of Botany in 2012"

TL;DR: An overview of plant-produced chemical compounds with medicinal properties and how their production is affected by different environmental factors is provided, including how these factors can be manipulated within the plants' growing environments as a way of ensuring quality.

TL;DR: In this paper, the main areas in agriculture and production where heavy metal contamination may occur in African herbal products for toxic heavy metals are discussed. And the authors highlight the cultural uses and poisonings related to heavy metals in traditional medicines.

TL;DR: The wide variety of plants that are used to treat sexually transmitted infections in this area emphasises the importance that medicinal plants can have in the primary health care system of the rural people in northern Maputaland (KwaZulu–Natal).

TL;DR: Gindeberet district is rich in its medicinal plant composition and the associated indigenous knowledge and Evaluation of the medicinal plants for their efficacy and possible toxicity would be very important.

TL;DR: The results suggest that low leaf chloride content can be used as an indicator of salt stress tolerance in citrus genotypes and should lead to the identification of new sources of tolerance for rootstock breeding.

TL;DR: Pollen tubes from both self- and cross-pollinated flowers entered the ovary within 8 h after pollination, thus confirming earlier reports of self-compatibility in this species.

TL;DR: In this article, the uptake and translocation pattern of trace metals from two different plant species from a waste dump site in Pretoria, South Africa was investigated and the trace metal contents from different parts of these plants (leaf, stem and root) were determined by the use of ICP-OES.

TL;DR: The Center for Invasion Biology, Working for Water, Stellenbosch University Subcommittee B, National Research Foundation (NRF) as mentioned in this paper was used for invasion biology research in South Africa.

TL;DR: Results suggest that Ss.sAPX can play an important role in the protection against salt-induced oxidative stress in higher plants.

TL;DR: The ripening rate was increased and the shelf life was decreased with the increase in storage temperature, irrespective of maturity stages and the skin color, total soluble solids, sugar contents and carotenoids were well correlated.

TL;DR: The de-epoxidation state in S. portulacastrum suggests the need for energy dissipation at 400 mM NaCl, while its salt-induced decline in T. indica, despite the reduced photochemistry, suggests the involvement of adaptive mechanisms other than the xanthophyll cycle.

TL;DR: An introduction is given to herbal extracts as therapeutic agents and to the quality control aspects of herbal medicine by means of metabolomics and the experimental methodology for plant metabolomics which covers extraction, nuclear magnetic resonance analysis and multivariate data analysis is discussed.

TL;DR: The results suggest that major and minor compounds of these essential oils act in synergy, causing the inhibitory effects observed on onion and lettuce.

TL;DR: In this paper, a 2:10:1 mixture of calcium sulphate, ground rice bran and humic acid was used as a soil amendment to study its effect on the growth, fruit yield, leaf nutrient status and antioxidant enzymes activities of tomato.

TL;DR: Results indicate that overexpression of acerola MDHAR imparts greater tolerance to salt stress and is a key enzyme of the ascorbate (AsA)-glutathione cycle that maintains reduced pools of AsA and serves as an important antioxidative enzyme.

TL;DR: In this article, the ameliorative effect of foliar-applied glycine betaine and sugarbeet extract on various physiological and biochemical attributes of okra plants under salt stress was examined.

TL;DR: Results suggest that seeds take salt up, causing inhibition of germination at sub-toxic concentrations; however, when returned to pure water, this extra salt may be able to increase germination rates and percentages.

TL;DR: Results may suggest that methanolic extracts of Solanum tuberosum and A. graveolens possess good antimicrobial activity, and therefore, they can be used in biotechnological fields as natural preservative ingredients in food and/or pharmaceutical industry.

TL;DR: The reduced intercellular spaces on the horn-shaped gall structure imply little gas exchange and, thus, hypoxic conditions on the gall tissues, so the incipient photosynthesis might be important to provide oxygen to the structure and avoid hypoxia, enabling gall metabolism.

TL;DR: In a quantitative antioxidant assay, the more polar fractions obtained by solvent–solvent fractionation had the highest antioxidant activity among the solvent fractions obtained from C. apiculatum, with EC50 values of 3.91 ± 0.02 and 2.02 μg/ml respectively.

TL;DR: This is the first report of non-dormancy and intermediate PD in a heteromorphic species, and interaction among ZR, ABA and GA3 may play an important role in dormancy status of both seed types.

TL;DR: It is shown that South African genotypes of C. asiatica may be suitable for commercial use and that several other Centella species are potential sources of asiaticsoside.

TL;DR: Nutritional composition was investigated in various indigenous fruit species that avian frugivores feed on in KwaZulu-Natal Afromontane and coastal forests to provide an understanding of the inter-relationships between indigenous fruit and frugovores in South Africa.

TL;DR: A total of 115 plant species encompassing 43 families screened for their anthelmintic potential (mainly nematodes) are listed in the current review, and Combretaceae and Fabaceae were the most commonly used families.

TL;DR: The aim of this study was to identify and select plants that exhibit the best antilisterial activity, isolate the bioactive compounds and determine their effect on the architecture of listerial biofilms.

TL;DR: The results obtained indicate that lemongrass oil possessed antifungal and antibiofilm activities and could modulate candidal colonization and merits further development of this agent for the therapy of oral candidiasis.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the response of lettuce seed germination to temperature and light, the effect of sodium nitroprusside (SNP), potassium ferricyanide (Fe(III)CN), nitrite, nitrate and NO scavenger 2-phenyl-4,4,5,5-tetramethylimidazoline-1-oxyl 3-oxide (PTIO), and the inhibiting role of PTIO on SNP, Fe(III), and acidified nitrite to determine the mechanisms of thermoinhibition of seed

TL;DR: It is highlighted that SU1 cannot be used as the only quality control marker for Sutherlandia products, since it does not occur in all populations and there is no conclusive evidence that it is the main active ingredient of the plant.

TL;DR: The results of the two marker systems revealed the genetic uniformity among the in vitro raised plants demonstrating the reliability of in vitro propagation system used for the cultivar.

TL;DR: To understand the phytoremediation capability of poplar 107 and poplar 118 stressed by cadmium, a hydroponic culture was performed and superoxide dismutase activity in the leaves of the two cultivars exposed to 50 μM and 100 μM Cd was significantly higher.