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Premise of the Study: A new infrafamilial circumscription of the Verbenaceae with eight tribes: Casselieae, Citharexyleae, Duranteae, Lantaneae, Neospartoneae, Petreeae, Priveae, and Verbeneae, has been recently proposed, on the basis of molecular phylogenetic studies. Two genera, Dipyrena and Rhaphithamnus, remain unplaced. The aim of this work is to reconstruct the evolutionary history of morphological characters traditionally employed in the classification of the Verbenaceae, with special attention to tribes Verbeneae and Lantaneae., Methods: Twenty-one characters, related to habit and vegetative morphology, inflorescence and floral morphology, ovary and fruit morphology, as well as chromosome number, were optimized over a molecular phylogeny of Verbenaceae., Key Results: All tribes are supported by at least one morphological trait except tribes Duranteae and Citharexyleae. Suffrutescent habit, sessile flowers, and four cluses are synapomorphies for tribe Verbeneae. Gynoecium with short style and entire stigma are synapomorphic traits for tribe Lantaneae. Sessile flowers and unicarpellate ovaries are morphological synapomorphies for the new tribe Neospartoneae. Suffrutescent habit is a synapomorphic trait for tribe Priveae. Homothetic pleiobotrya and absence of the adaxial staminode are synapomorphic traits for tribe Casselieae. Undivided fleshy fruits are probably a synapomorphic trait for tribe Petreeae. Putative plesiomorphies for the ancestor of the Verbenaceae are discussed as well as synapomorphic traits within other Verbenaceae clades., Conclusions: Many of the characters traditionally employed in classification have proven to be very homoplastic, or have been shown not to support relationships within the family. Moreover, traditional assumptions concerning character polarity have in some cases been shown to be incorrect.

Objective: To study the identification characters of Baphicacanthus cusia and its confused herb Clerodendrum cyrtophyllum and establish an identification method., Methods: LMVP (leaf morphological-venation pattern for identification Chinese herbs) and QAERM (quantitatively analyze and evaluate reliability for the method of identification Chinese herbs) were applied for the study., Results: The main differences of the leaf were as follows: Baphicacanthus cusia: leaf base attenuate, dry leaves deep dull blue green, spindle spots, no or small glandular scales somewhere, the limit between midrib and petiole was not clear, below undermost secondary vein some tertiary veins issue from midrib; Clerodendrum cyrtophyllum: leaf base not attenuate; dry leaves yellow green, green, green yellow, yellow brown, no spindle spots, densely covered by glandular scales,the limit between midrib and petiole was clear, below undermost secondary vein none tertiary veins issue from midrib. With the mentioned six groups of key differences, the both plants could be successfully identified from each other. The accuracy of identification results (AC) was from 98.5% to 99.2%, the repeatability of identification results: agreement rate for observation (ARO) was 97.7% and Kappa value was 0.95., Conclusion: The established method is simple, rapid, economic and reliable.

From the leaves of Duranta repens (Verbenaceae) two new triterpene saponins, named durantanin IV (1) and V (2)were isolated.In addition, ten known compounds were isolated, namely a bidesmosidic saponin, oleanolic acid, three phenylethanoids and five flavonoids. All metabolites were isolated for the first time from this genus except for 3 (oleanolic acid) and 7 (E/Z acteoside). The structures were determined mainly by spectroscopic methods (UV, IR, HRESI-MS, (1)H-, (13)C-NMR, (1)H-(1)H COSY, HSQC and HMBC). Cytotoxic screening of the chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts was carried out on brine shrimps. In addition, the investigated methanol extract and compounds 1, 2 and 7 showed significant cytotoxic activity against a HepG2 cell line.

The tree Gmelina arborea has been widely introduced in Costa Rica for commercial purposes. This new conditions for melina cause variations on anatomy in secondary xylem of the trees growing in plantations. The objective of the present research was to determine the variation in the anatomy of xylem caused by the ecological conduction variation. Dimensions of fiber, axial parenchyma percentage of cross sections, parameters of vessels and the ray were measured. The results showed that some anatomical characteristics remained stable despite variations of ecological conditions, especially radial parenchyma and anatomical features which were less affected by the altitude. On the other hand, the vessels, axial parenchyma and fiber were less stable because they were affected significantly by the longitude, latitude, altitude and precipitation. Latitude significantly affected vessel percentage, length and diameter of the fiber and lumen. Longitude affected vessel percentage and fiber diameter. Altitude had a significant correlation with the amount of cells at ray height. Annual average precipitation affected vessel percentage and diameter, not only of the fiber, but also of the lumen. These results suggest that the new growth conditions of G. arborea trees in Costa Rica have produced an anatomic adaptation.