Abstract

Many Fritillaria species have long been exploited as the natural source of the widely used traditional medicine ‘bulbus Fritillaria’. The major morphological traits and chemical compositions were characterized in the bulbs of nine widely cultivated Fritillaria species in China. LSD analysis revealed that the morphological traits differed significantly among nine species, which were clustered into four groups using PCA; the ZB-Ft and WY-Fwu were relatively distantly related to other species. Morphological traits could be used to identify species which differ significantly in bulb size from the others, and ‘short diameter of bulb’ could be used as the most important identification indicators. Based on the chemical composition data, all those species were clustered into two groups. The alkaloid and saponin contents could be effective in the identification of morphologically similar species. Our results have important implications for the source control of medication safety and the rational development of bulbus Fritillaria.