New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Chemotaxonomy of Phormium based on sugar-residue analyses of the leaf exudates

Stephen E. K. Tauwhare

Industrial Research Limited
PO Box 31310
Lower Hutt, New Zealand

Roger H. Newman

Scion
PO Box 3020
Rotorua, New Zealand

Suzanne Scheele

Landcare Research
PO Box 69
Lincoln 8152, New Zealand

Rangi Te Kanawa

Conservation Textiles
PO Box
Te Kuiti, New Zealand

Abstract  Leaf exudates were harvested from 48 named cultivars of Phormium and one unnamed cultivar held in the National New Zealand Flax Collection at Lincoln, Christchurch. Exudate was also harvested from plants from several wild provenances, and from plants of the cultivar Taeore known to have originated from a single source. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was used to determine the xylose residues, expressed as a percentage of all sugar residues in the exudate. Xylose residues were in the range 58% to 82%, with cultivars at the low and high extremities showing morphological characteristics of P. cookianum and P. tenax, respectively. There was little seasonal, site-to-site, or within-site variation beyond the standard error, typically <2% (absolute), associated with a single measurement.

Keywords  Phormium; chemotaxonomy; exudate; xylose

B05036; Received 19 August 2005; accepted 15 March 2006; Online publication date 18 April 2006
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 2006, Vol. 44: 129–133
0028–825X/06/4402–0129 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2006

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