抄録
Capitulum of Artemisia capillaris is used as a crude drug in the Kampo medicines. Ten accessions of A. capillaris collected from various locations in Japan were examined for their flowering date, shoot growth and contents of choleretic substances i.e. capillarisin (CAP) and 6, 7-dimethylesculetin (DME), to select the important characters for capitulum yield and quality, and to characterize each accession. The experiment was conducted at the Tsukuba Medicinal Plant Research Station, Ibaraki, Japan. Accessions collected from higher latitude flowered earlier than those from lower latitude. Accordingly, dry weights of capitula, stems plus leaves and whole shoot in the accessions collected from higher latitudes were lower than those collected from lower latitudes. Larger shoot biomass, the consequence of longer vegetative growth period, was found to be important for higher capitula yield. Shoot length and contents of CAP and DME were not related with flowering date and the latitude of habitats. The results of principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that each accession from various locations was characterized by shoot length, shoot biomass and contents of CAP and DME and that the intra-accessional variations of shoot growth and contents of CAP and DME in the accessions collected from lower latitudes were greater than those from higher latitudes. Based on the results of PCA, the ten accessions were grouped into four types.
