Lamiaceae
Future Plans
Collections (2006 onwards)
Development of the Salvia border and its interpretation will continue and help present our multidisciplinary work to the public. In the Herbarium, the collections will be recurated to reflect the completion of the Lamiaceae accounts in the African Floras. Phylogenetic work on Plectranthus will continue and expand in subfamily Viticoideae thus DNA bank accessions will continue to increase for these taxa. This will be supported by further field work in SE Asia and Brazil.
Baseline Plant Diversity Research (2006 onwards)
A draft species level checklist compiled by Rafaël Govaerts was made available in January 2006. We plan to establish a collaborative review panel to review the data and ensure its quality before disseminating this to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) via the Catalogue of life Partnership.
Baseline work in the Viticoideae will continue with initial targets of Teijsmanniodendron, several genera for the Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak, and Premna and Callicarpa in continental SE Asia. The latter will also assist with the completion of the family for the Flora of Thailand and as a basis for broader monographic work. Baseline work in Africa, after the completion of accounts for Flora Zambesiaca and Flora of Tropical East Africa, will be restricted to new species accounts from poorly known areas being inventoried by the regional teams (e.g. Guinea, Conakry in W Tropical Africa). The group will continue to collaborate in New World Flora projects where appropriate, with our main emphasis being tribe Ocimeae, subtribe Hyptidinae (Hyptis and allies).
Comparative Plant Biology (2006 onwards)
Phylogenetic work in tribe Ocimeae will concentrate on Plectranthus and a more robust phylogeny of the genus will be produced in mid 2007 (in collaboration with the University of Reading). A molecular phlyogeny of tribe Ocimeae subtribe Hyptidinae will be produced in collaboration with Brazilian collaborators..
A molecular phylogeny of the Viticoideae will be produced in mid 2007. This will be used to help clarify generic boundaries and identify clades for further in depth study. More detailed phylogenetic work in Callicarpa, Vitex and Premna is planned. Further possibilities for phylogenetic work in Prostantheroideae are being explored, as like the Viticoideae it represents early branching lineages of the Lamiaceae.
We will continue to explore floral morphology and phytochemistry within the Lamiales where our expertise and opportunities permit. Plant-pollination relationships within the Lamiales are being explored as part of the COEVOL project.
Sustainable Utilisation of Plant Resources (2006 onwards)
Currently many species of Lamiaceae from different genera are used as medicinal plants both for the treatment of people and animals. The group is currently studying the medicinal properties of a range of species especially for their use in the treatment of wounds as well as for their antibacterial activity. Previous research showed that extracts from species of Scutellaria, Ajuga, Teucrium and Salvia have potential antifeedant activity against larvae of the moth Spodoptera littoralis. The compounds associated with these activities continue to be studied. There is also interest in growing more species within Britain, and Kew has been working with growers to see if the plants they are growing contain the active ingredients at levels that would justify developing them as economic crops.
The recent review on the ethnobotanical uses of species of Plectranthus showed that in most cases the compounds associated with their medicinal uses are not known. For example, they are used in parts of Africa for the treatment of infections and the activity of these species cannot be fully explained by the diterpenoid compounds that have been isolated from them. Kew is currently investigating species being used to treat malaria and tuberculosis. We are also collating information about the chemistry of the genus for a review.
Many species of Salvia have medicinal properties and although the active ingredients in some species are known, the active components in most species have not been determined. We aim to compare the medicinal uses of Salvia from Europe and the New World with those from Asia and then look at the relationships between chemistry and uses. The information about chemistry and traditional uses will then be superimposed onto the new phylogenies being produced for the genus. We plan to use the resulting information to select species for further chemical studies. Currently we are studying the biological properties of Salvia in the areas of Alzheimer’s, cancer and their role in modulating insect feeding behaviour.
Species of Vitex are used in medicinal preparations and in cosmetics. We are currently investigating whether flavonoids could be used to study the relationships among species to see if they could be used as markers to differentiate among the taxa. This could lead to a chemosystematic study if funds and plant material available.
Conservation and Environmental Monitoring (2006 onwards)
We will continue to produce preliminary conservation assessments in conjunction with Flora projects. Major planned contributions include around 350 species-level assessments from work on the African Floras, c. 50 from revisions of Premna and Callicarpa and 40 from Teijsmanniodendron.