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As a medicinal and edible plant, Chrysanthemum morifolium cv. "Hangju" has economic value and is widely used as a Chinese herbal medicine and tea. However, the metabolomic difference between "Hangju" flowers with white and yellow petals is unclear. In this study, Chrysanthemum variety ZXYJ with white petals and its bud mutation strain JJYH with yellow petals were used as research materials. A preliminary study found that the relative content of total flavonoids in JJYH was 45.4% higher than that in ZXYJ. Combined transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis revealed that the phenylpropanoid biosynthetic pathway and the phenylalanine metabolic pathway had the highest degree of differentially expressed genes and significantly changed metabolites enrichment, respectively. The redirection of metabolic flux may contribute to increased accumulation of total flavonoid levels in JJYH, which may begin as early as phenylalanine metabolism. The results of this research provide a scientific basis for the development of products related to different colored medicinal chrysanthemums and references for the breeding of new varieties and the biosynthesis of phenylpropanoids.

The dried roots of Zanthoxylum nitidum (Roxb.) DC have been widely used in Chinese medicine for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, toothache, stomach ache, bruises, and snakebites. Alkaloid content, particularly for nitidine chloride (NC), is a crucial indicator of herb quality. Abuse of plant sources of Z. nitidum, such as the usage of NC content not adhering to the Chinese Pharmacopoeia specification, has appeared in herb markets. Thus, a distribution survey was conducted on wild samples from 35 sites grown in 5 provinces, including the evaluation of morphological and phytochemical differences (three alkaloids, one flavonoid, and one lignin). Consequently, the surveyed plants were attributed to four types: three species (type I, II, and III) and one variety (type IV). The NC content of most type I, II, and III plants met quality guidelines, however, all three type IV plants from Guangxi Province exhibited low NC content; the use of plants from that area should be carefully considered. To identify the biosynthetic pathway of NC and other active compounds, nine transcriptomes of type III (root, stem and leaf, three replicates for each tissue) and three of type I (three leaf replicates) were performed to mine candidate unigenes. A set of 505,386 unigenes with an average length of 866 bp were identified. Coexpression analysis of tissue expression patterns were used to narrow down the candidate genes. Consequently, 23 candidate unigenes involved in the alkaloid biosynthesis pathway, 38 unigenes in the lignan biosynthesis pathway, and 16unigenes in the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway were screened. The distribution survey and phytochemical and transcriptome analyses conducted in this study provided valuable insights into resource preservation and the potential of molecular breeding to improve the quality of Z. nitidum products.

Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt. from Mt. Kunlun (located in Tibet, Xinjiang) is a new Chrysanthemum tea material, and its volatile components are reported here for the first time. C. tinctoria produces a greater quantity and better quality of volatile components compared with two other Chrysanthemum tea materials (Chrysanthemum morifolium cv. ‘Hangju’ and Chrysanthemum morifolium cv. ‘Gongju’). The volatile oil content was 0.42%, with eighty-one components. The major components included six monoterpenes (limonene, 11.308%; α-phellandrene, 3.884%; p-acetyltoluene, 2.761%; carvone, 2.666%; 1R-α-pinene, 2.656%; and α-campholenal, 2.483%), three sesquiterpenes (α-bergamotene, 7.314%; tricyclo[6.3.0.0(1,5)]undec-2-ene-4-one,2,3,5,9-tetramethyl-, 3.454%; and naphthalene, 1,2-dihydro-1,1,6-trimethyl-, 3.024%), and a fatty acid component (n-hexadecanoic acid, 2.713%). Antioxidant activity study was revealed that the volatile oil of C. tinctoria had the better activity than the two compared samples. With next further study, C. tinctoria could be a more promising medicinal raw material than other popular chrysanthemum tea materials.

Tulipa edulis is an important medicinal plant with a variety of anti-cancer properties. There is an urgent need to reduce water consumption in T. edulis under greenhouse cultivation. A greenhouse experiment was performed to study the effect of well-watered (80% of field capacity, Control), persistent drought (50% of field capacity, D) and alternate wetting and drying (50% and 80% of field capacity, AWD) regimes on the growth traits, photosynthetic pigment contents, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, photosynthetic characteristics and yield of T. edulis . The results showed that compared with the well-watered control, persistent drought inhibited plant growth and yields dramatically, presumably due to the significantly lower photosynthetic rate caused by a decrease in photosynthetic pigments and a reduced chlorophyll fluorescence efficiency (Fv/Fm, Fv/F0). In contrast, the AWD plants showed a capacity for photosynthesis comparable to the well-watered control, which could be associated with similar photosynthetic pigment levels and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters (Fv/Fm, Fv/F0). AWD reduced the irrigation water input by 25.09% while leading to comparable yields and increased water productivity by 21.21% compared with the well-watered control. The results suggested that an alternate wetting and drying (50% and 80% of field capacity) regime can be an effective means of saving water, promoting bulb production, and improving water production for T. edulis .