COMPARATIVE CHEMICAL VARIABILITY OF THE NON POLAR EXTRACTS FROM SENECIO CINERARIA GROUP (ASTERACEAE)

Subject and sourceIn a recent taxonomic and nomenclatural revision of the Italian Senecio cinerariagroup, Peruzzi and Passalacqua (2003) proposed the following taxonomic settingbased on qualitative morphology and cytotaxonomy: S. cineraria DC. (subsp.cineraria, subsp. bicolor (Willd.) Arcangeli, subsp. gibbosus (Guss.) Peruzzi et N.G.Passal.) and Senecio ambiguus (Biv.) DC. (subsp. ambiguus, subsp. nebrodensis(Guss.) Peruzzi et N.G. Passal.) The characters used for discriminating the specieswere shape and hairiness of leaves and involucres and habitat of the plants.More recently, some of the nomenclature has been reviewed (Conti et al., in press),and the name Senecio gibbosus has been given priority on S. cineraria; the resultingcombinations are: S. gibbosus subsp. gibbosus, subsp. cineraria (DC.) Peruzzi, N.G.Passal. et Soldano and subsp. bicolor (Willd.) Peruzzi, N.G. Passal. et Soldano.The whole S. cineraria group was formerly considered as belonging to the sect.Incani (DC.) Hoffm. (Chater and Walters, 1976; Herborg, 1992), but is at presentincluded within the sect. Jacobaea (Mill.) Dumort, due to molecular andmorphological studies (Pelser et al., 2002, 2003). Representatives of S. cinerariagroup (incl. Senecio gnaphalodes Sieber, endemic to Crete), within the ‘‘Seneciojacobaea-clade’’ (Pelser et al., 2003) are rather taxonomically isolated, because oftheir typical Mediterranean ecology and distribution. It is of note that this complexexpresses a high amount of variability in the Mediterranean (Chater, 1974; Chaterand Walters, 1976; Pignatti, 1982; Herborg, 1992).Aerial parts of the five species belonging to S. cineraria group were collected inCentral-Southern Italy and Sicily during JuneeJuly 2003. Voucher specimens aredeposited in the Herbarium, University of Calabria (CLU); no 4451 (S. gibbosussubsp. gibbosus), no 4454 (S. gibbosus subsp. bicolor), no 4455 (S. gibbosus subsp.cineraria), no 7744e7746 (S. ambiguus subsp. ambiguus), and no 7747-7748(S. ambiguus subsp. nebrodensis).