Investigation of Morphologic Variation and Essence Value in several Thyme Native Species (Thymus sp) of Iran

• Main Authors: mahdieh razaei, abbas safarnejad, mostafa arab, S.B.L Alamdari, marzieh dalir
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Persian
• Published: Ferdowsi University of Mashhad 2017
• Subjects: Correlation coefficient; Essence value; Morphological characteristics; Thymus; Agriculture (General); S1-972; Greenland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.22067/jhorts4.v30i3.30435; https://doaj.org/article/b8a8b4540713419981a1c07392929633

Introduction: Thyme is an important medicinal plant in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food industries. The genus Thymus L. (Lamiaceae) consists of about 300 species of herbaceous perennials and subshrubs. This genus is mainly distributed over Mediterranean country, northern part of Africa and Southern Greenland. Thymus species are commonly used as spices, herbal tea, insecticide and flavoring materials. Also, Thymus have been most frequently used in traditional herbal medicine due to its antiseptic, carminative, expectorant, antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory properties. Recent studies have showed that this genus have strong antifungal, antibacterial and antioxidant activities. Because of these medical features of this genus, Thymus is cultivated all over the world. The aromatic and medicinal properties of the genus thymus have made it one of the most popular plantsthroughout all of the world. Materials and Methods: In order to study genetic variations, 22 populations of endemic species of Thymus include thirteen populations from species of T. daenensis, four populations of T. migricus and one population from each of the following species: T. fedtschenkoi, T. vulgaris, T. transcaspicus, T. pubsence and T. kotschyanus were used for assessment of morphology and essence value. Populations in completely random block design with three replications at the Razavi-khorasan Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Center were planted. Morphological measurement was taken on five random individuals of each replicate and average traits were analyzed. Clevenger unit was used to measure the essence amount. Morphological traits were included leaf length, leaf width, leaf number of year stem, maximum diameter of canopy, minimum diameter of canopy, canopy area, height flowering stem, height inflorescence, number of stems per plant, number days to starting of flowering, number days to 50% of flowering, fresh yield, dry yield, height of stem than inflorescence, and essence weight and volume. A balanced completely randomized design ...