New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Triterpene methyl ether differentiation in Chionochloa (Gramineae)

H. E. Connor and A. W. Purdie

Botany Division, DSIR, Private Bag, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract Triterpene methyl ethers were isolated from the epicuticular wax of 12 species of Chionochloa and were absent from 8 species. These triterpenoids are only rarely species specific, but at the infraspecific level in some wide ranging species there are discrete biochemical races with circumscribed geographic distributions. Arundoin and miliacin, known to be common in the Gramineae, are the most frequent triterpene methyl ethers in this genus, arundoin occurring in nine species, and miliacin in six. Methyl ethers of lupeol, parkeol, cycloartenol, and jG-amyrin occur in fewer species. Species such as C. pallens, C. crassiuscula, C. acicularis, and C. cheesemanii invariably synthesise triterpene methyl ethers, but in C. rigida, C. fiavescens, and C. rubra there are many populations where the compounds are not produced. Spontaneous multiple origins of dominant genes that control the methylation of 3 /3-hydroxytriterpenes are proposed.

Received 21 July 1976
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1976, Vol. 14: 315-26.

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (697K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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