Hi everyone! I am a biology student from Belgium starting an individual research on the evolution of plants (using DNA sequencing) and the construction of cladograms. I am writing here to search some useful advice on what kind of plant I should start with. I am searching for a plant with medicinal virtues, difficult to cultivate and to grow. This is because the construction of the cladogram would allow to search for similare medicinal properties in plants closely related to the first one but easier to grow. Do you have any suggestion? Thank you very much.
Banesteriopsis caapii comes to mind immediately, as does Sobralia rosacea; it would help to know whether you're looking for a temperate or a tropical medicinal? Obviously there are going to be culture issues with the tropicals in temperate zones, as they are with temperates in tropical ones.
Thank you very much for your answer! The aim of my project is to find species easier to cultivate than the starting one. For example: I could start with Sebralia rosacea and then build a cladogram using DNA sequencing of a specific protein inside the plant. This cladogram would allow to find closely related species much more easier to grow (hopefully). While i have been able to find informations about Banisteriopsis caapi, I could not find the medicinal virtues of S. rosacea. Could you enlighten me about this aspect? Are those two species (B. caapi; S. rosacea) hard to cultivate? Thank you very much!
Banisteriopsis and its difficulty will depend greatly on where you are on the globe and whether you've got adequate soil and moisture conditions for it. It's a deep-Amazon vine and requires a great deal of humidity and heat, and in my experience also a frank, quick-draining volcanic soil. It seems (in natural conditions at least) to be dependant on the presence of Cedrella odorata in its ecosystem, and there are likely variables I'm missing since many plants of this type are also myrmeco-dependant... Sobralia rosacea is an orchid, the flowers of which are used for cough and congestion (I can personally attest to its efficacy). It comes with all of the difficulties of orchid growing, including a terrestrial habit highly dependant on soil conditions, and is also very altitude sensitive.
Thanks again for everything! I would like to point out that I actually do not need to grow those species to proceed in my project. I am planning to visit and contact some botanical gardens and ask their permission to take one or two leaves of those plants. However B. caapi RuBisCO (the protein that I am going to analyze)-coding DNA sequence has already been entered in the World GeneBank and therefore is not suitable for my project (that should be innovative). As for S.rosacea, the plant is not in the collection of the botanical garden where I planned to go. Do you know any other specie suitable for my project? Thank you in advance.
Which botanical garden? (I'm assuming Brussels, but do you have access to Berlin?) Other tough-to-cultivate medicinals that come to mind are Hungurahua (Oenocarpus bataua), difficult becuase it's a palm tree with very specific soil and pH requirements and a very long lifecycle, also altitude-sensitive; and Croton lechleri (which produces Sangre de Drago, a tropical panaceum), also a fairly large tree with specific environmental requirements that is not normally cultivated because of the sheer timescale (50-100 years is not unheard of) require to produce a tree of medicinal age. Hungurahua is used as a vermifuge and gastric tonic, as well as an anti-dandruff treatment. Sangre de Drago is used as an antibiotic, antimycotic, antiviral, cicatrisant, and vermifuge.
Those two last plants would make really interesting specimen for my project their DNA-sequence being not yet listed in the World Gen Bank! Alas, the National botanical garden of Belgium does not include those plants in its collections. There are no Oenocarpus but there are other Croton: Croton megalobotrys Croton megalocarpus Croton mubango Croton oxypetalus I am thinking at looking for another botanical garden. Actually, i could go to Berlin but it would be a time-consuming step that would definitely slow down my project. I really appreciate your help and the time you are spending to help my project. Thank you very much!
