1984 Volume 50 Issue 5 Pages 628-636
Characteristic antifungal components were found in camellia (Camellia japonica), wabisuke group and C. granthamiana plants. The active substances were easily extracted from leaves and petals of the plants to ten volumes of water by homogenization or autoclaving for 5 minuites at 120C. On the potato-sucrose liquid medium mixed with the same volume of the extract, normal conidial germination or growth of hyphae of many fungi were inhibited. Namely almost no conidium germinated in Pyricularia oryzae and Cochliobolus miyabeanus, germ tubes or conidia themselves swelled resembling balloons and no normal hypha grew in Pestalotia longiseta, Gloeosporium theae-sinensis, Diaporthe citri, Botrytis cinerea, etc., and growth of hyphae was worse in Alternaria kikuchiana and Alternaria mali. Two triterpenoid saponins were isolated as the antifungal compounds from aqueous extract of camellia leaf and given designations camellidin I and camellidin II. Their molecular formulas were C55H86O25 (MW=1146) and C53H84O24 (MW=1104) respectively, the activity was stronger in the former. It was presumed that these saponins were concerned in the resistance of camellia and the closely related plants against the fungal infection.
