Morphological and anatomical characteristics of five Eleutherococcus species which are the important source for oriental medicine were investigated.
The leaf and the spine shapes in morphology were the main factors to identify the Eleutherococcus spe...
Morphological and anatomical characteristics of five Eleutherococcus species which are the important source for oriental medicine were investigated.
The leaf and the spine shapes in morphology were the main factors to identify the Eleutherococcus species. The numbers and length of spine on the stem were prominent characters to identify the E. senticosus.
In anatomical characters, the thickness of cork layer, phloem and xylem were different among the species. E senticosus is very similar with E. chiisanensis in their morphology but they could be distinguished by anatomical characters such as thickness of cork, secondary phloem and number of cell layer of cork in one year old branch.
It was suggested that the ratio of secondary xylem thickness to radius of stem can be used as the measure related with production of useful substance in Eleutherococcus spp.