Abstract
The present investigation was conducted to obtain detailed figures concerning the phylogenies of the genus Camellia belonging to the Section Camellia of Japanese and Formosan origin by the use of petal-anthocyanins as chemical markers.
Wild forms of camellias, C. japonica, C. japonica ssp. rusticana, C. japonica ssp. hozanensis and C. japonica f. macrocarpa were characterized by the pigments of lower Rf-values on TLC-plate. Of these pigments, C. japonica ssp. rusticana and C. japonica ssp. hozanensis of Formosan origin contained only spot 1, as compared with C. japonica, C. japonica ssp. hozanensis of Japanese origin and C. japonica f. macrocarpa which contained spots 3, 4 and 5 along with a major spot 1. Furthermore, the former two subspecies contained a relatively large amount of cyanidin 3-galactoside, from 48 to 60% of the amounts of spot 1, and the latter three contained a small amount of this pigment, from 9 to 29%.
From these standpoint of the constitution of anthocyanins, it is assumed that these two camellia-groups differed from each other in the processes of phylogenetical differentiation.
