2020 Volume 58 Issue 3 Pages 71-78
Nephrolepis cordifolia (L.) C. Presl is an ornamental plant found in New Zealand and other countries as an invasive species. Allelopathy is a phenomenon that has been proposed as the mechanism for the success of many plant species colonization. However, there are very few studies reported on the allelopathic activity of N. cordifolia. Therefore, we evaluated the allelopathic activity of the aerial and underground parts of N. cordifolia against the growth of test plants. The extracts from the aerial and underground parts of N. cordifolia inhibited the growth of cress, lettuce, barnyard grass, and Italian ryegrass, where the inhibition was proportional to the extract concentration and depended on test plant species. Comparing the average percentage growth and the I50 values revealed the aerial part extracts had a greater inhibitory effect than the underground part extracts. Thus, the aerial part extracts were chromatographed on a silica gel column. Inhibitory activity was found and more pronounced with the fractions eluted with 70 and 80％ ethyl acetate in n-hexane, which inhibited the growth of cress to less than 50％ of control growth. These findings indicate that the aerial part extracts of N. cordifolia may contain inhibitory substances that are responsible for the allelopathic activity.
