Abstract
“Flora” is a publication which lists all plant taxa in an area and provides much information as a basis for research into plant diversity and conservation of endangered plant species. Despite its importance, there are countries where a “Flora” has not yet been compiled due to cost, time and human resource limitations. Myanmar is one of them.
Zingiberaceae constitute a large monocotyledonous family, distributed mainly in Southeast Asia, including well known economic plants with ornamental, spice, fragrance and medicinal uses. At least 52 genera and 1,578 species have so far been reported. Classification of species in Zingiberaceae is a difficult subject because the plant inventory is not well established in Southeast Asia and morphological identification of flowers is complicated by availability of only dry specimens, and also large variation depending on the environment. Thus cultivation surveys or expeditions into habitats during flowering season are necessary. The biggest problem is that this corresponds to the rainy season in Southeast Asia. Considering these circumstances, we selected the genus Zingiber which is most used in the ginger family for medicinal purposes across the world, although classification of all but the most representative species already finding economical application has not progressed far. Many wild species have also not been studied for chemical components. First we started to collect rhizomes or tubers of Zingiber from Myanmar and 36 identified samples and 10 unidentified were analyzed by UPLC. As result, 6-gingerol, 8-gingerol and 10-gingerol were detected in all samples of Zingiber officinale, but not in Z. montanum, Z. zerumbet and Z.idae. Interestingly, Z. officinale, Z. montanum, Z. zerumbet, Z. idae showed different chromatogram patterns. With all samples taken into account, there were 5 types: A represented by Z. officinale, B represented by Z. montanum , C represented by Z. idae , D represented by Z. zerumbet and E with chromatograms not showing any obvious peaks, these latter including Z. longiligulatum, Z. rubens, Z. flavomaculosum, Z. squarrosum, Z. thorelli, Z. orbiculatum. At present, isolation and identification of characteristic components in B to D type chromatograms are being carried out and differences of species categorized in E type are under analysis.
