Abstract
Aerva javanica is one of Egypt’s most important traditional medicinal plants used as antidiarrheal and anthelmintic medicine and recently as an anticancer agent. In this study, variations among ten populations of Aerva javanica in different sites in the Eastern Desert of Egypt were analyzed based on morphological and ecological attributes and molecular variation expressed by Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) markers. Morphological diversity was higher for populations in the Wadi El-Markh and Bir Abbady regions than others. The polymorphism revealed by ten ISSR primers was 79.4% among populations. Distance trees created using the results obtained from soil variables, morphological characterizations, and molecular data showed that the highest similarity was 0.974 between Populations 8 and 9, while the lowest similarity was 0.715 between Population 1 and Population 3 regions. In conclusion, the obtained data are important to design a plan for sustainable conservation of Aerva javanica as an important medicinal plant having a wide interspecific genetic variability within various populations.
Highlights
Aerva javanica (Burm.f.) Juss. ex Schult (Amaranthaceae) is a grey permanent tomentose woolly shrub, growing spread out the remote areas of the world [1]
The association between morphological and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting was applied to Artemisia judaica and Artemisia monosperma, and the results suggested the transfer of A. herba alba to the genus Seriphidium of Artemisia [23]
Leaf length and width values indicated that plants of Pop 8 from Wadi Abbady (Idfu-Mrsa Allam Road) have the highest value of 2.82 * ± 0.1 cm and 7.2 * ± 0.4 mm, respectively, while the lowest leaf length value of 1.39 * ± 0.1 cm was recorded in Pop 4 from Qeft-Qusseir Road and the lowest leaf width value of 4.4 * ± 0.5 mm was recorded in Pop 9 from Wadi Abbady (Idfu-Mrsa Allam Road)
Summary
Aerva javanica (Burm.f.) Juss. ex Schult (Amaranthaceae) is a grey permanent tomentose woolly shrub, growing spread out the remote areas of the world [1]. In Egypt, there are two species of Aerva (A. lanata (L.) Juss. Ex Schult and A. javanica (Burm.f.) Juss. In Egypt, Aerva javanica grows in the Eastern Desert, the Red. Sea coastal strip, Gebel Elba and the surrounding mountainous region, Uweinat, the entire Sinai, Siwa, Farafra, Bahariya, Kharga, Dakhla, and Kurkur. Aerva javanica has an erect rigid branched stem to a height of 1.6 m. The flowers are white-creamy and very small. Fruits immersed in silky white fleece are globular, single small black seeds. Various Aerva species are usually utilized in a popular medicine system against various sicknesses. The roots mash of A. javanica is used straight on the Agronomy 2020, 10, 402; doi:10.3390/agronomy10030402 www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy
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