Open Access Journal of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Vol. 3 (2): 12-14
OAJMAP (2012)
Polymorphism in flower colour and petal type in Aparajita (Clitoria ternatea) Ashok Kumar Bishoyi* and Geetha K.A. Directorate of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research, Boriavi-387310, Anand,Gujarat Corrsponding author. E-mail :
[email protected]
Manuscript received : 31 December 2012
Manuscript accepted : 01 January.2013 that petal mutants also exist in nature wherein the wing and keel petals were bigger in size, attaining the size of the standard petal so that the flower appeared as ‘radial’ in appearance in contrast to the ‘bilateral’ flower, typical of C. ternatea. If only the wing petals are enlarged, the flowers took had double layered corolla and if both wing and keel petals enlarged, the flowers had multiple layered corolla (Fig. 1 and 2). In a typical C. ternatea flower, size of standard petal ranged from 3.8 x 2.8 to 4.2 x 3.00 cm; size of wing petal ranged from 2.6 x 1.4 to 2.7 x 1.8 cm, while size of keel petals ranged from 1.8 x 0.5 to 2.0 x 0.8 cm, while in the mutant types, all the petals were mostly similar in sizes which varied from 3.8 x 2.0 cm to 4.2 x 3.0 cm.
Clitoria ternatea L., belonging to Fabaceae family is a very well known Ayurvedic medicinal plant used for different ailments. It is commonly called Butterfly pea or Conch flower or ‘Aparajita’. The species is believed to be a native of the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico, but is now naturalised all over the tropical parts of India. The plant bears solitary, axillary, papilionaceous flowers. The fresh root is slightly bitter and acrid in taste. In the Indian systems of medicines particularly in Ayurveda, roots, seeds and leaves of the species have long been used as brain tonic and is believed to promote memory and intelligence (Mukherjee et al., 2008). The leaves and roots are used in the treatment of a number of ailments including body aches, especially infections, urinogenital disorders, and as an anthelmintic and antidote to animal stings (Nirmal et al., 2008). The major phyto-constituents found in Clitoria ternatea are the pentacyclic triterpenoids such as taraxerol and taraxerone (Banerjee & Chakravarti 1963, 1964; Uma et al., 2009).
In the germplasm, wide variation was observed in terms of flower colour also. Blue and white flowered plant types were common, however, blue colour was found in different shades. In addition to these two colours, lilac/ mauve/lavender was also found (Fig. 3). The colours were matched with RHS colour chart and presented in Table 1.
Flowers of Clitoria ternatea is typical papilionaceous zygomorphic type with calyx consisting of five fused sepals and corolla with five free petals. Flowers are pedicellate and length of the pedicel is 4-5 mm. The androecium is diadelphous with ten stamens arranged in (9)+1 fashion. Pistil is monocarpellary and ovary is unilocular with 10 ovules arranged in marginal placentation. Style is long and curved at the distal end and stigma is usually simple.
The colours and colour stabilities of flowers can be adequately accounted for by the pigment structure and concentration, the flavonol type and ratio and the epidermal pH (Markham et al , 1997). In C. ternatea, colour variability was reported by Kazuma et al (2003) from Japan and they identified that flavonoids in the petals are responsible for different petal colours in the species. Ternatins, a group of 15 (poly) acylated delphinidin glucosides were identified in all the blue petal lines, while delphinidin 3-O-(6-O”-malonyl)-β-glucoside-3’O-β-glucoside is identified from mauve flower type. The white petal line did not contain anthocyanins.
The present paper reports different flower colour variants and petal types available in the germplasm of C. ternatea collected from different parts of India. Twenty four accessions collected from different parts of India which are maintained in the field gene bank of the Directorate of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research, Anand, Gujarat was used for the study.
In India, two varieties, blue and white flowered, are mentioned in Ayurvedic texts. Among the two varieties, the white-flowered one is believed to be therapeutically more active and hence preferred (Mukherjee et al., 2007). The blue-flowered variety is generally used as a substitute for the white-flowered one. It would be interesting to find out the chemical composition of these flower colour variants as well as their efficacy as raw drugs.
In a typical flower of C. ternatea, corolla is papilionaceous, consisted of one standard petal, two wing petals and two keel petals. The keel petals are fused to enclose androecium and gynoecium. The standard petal is biggest among the petals, followed by wing petals and keel petals. The present study showed
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OAJMAP (2012) Markham, K.R., Gould, K.S., Winefield C.S., Mitchell, K.A., Bloor, S.J., Boase, M.R. 2000. Anthocyanic vacuolar inclusions-their nature and significance in flower colouration. Phytochemistry 55:327–336.
Reference Banerjee, S.K. and Chakravarti, R.N. 1963.Taraxerol from Clitoria ternatea. Bulletin of the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine 11: 106-107.
Nirmal, S., Bhalke, R., Jadhav, R. and Tambe, V. 2008. Anthelmintic activity of Clitoria ternatea. Pharmacologyonline 1: 114-119.
Banerjee, S.K. and Chakravarti, R.N. 1964. Taraxerone from Clitoria ternatea. Bulletin of Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine 12: 23.
Uma, B. Prabhakar, K. and Rajendran, S. 2009. Phytochemical analysis and antimicrobial Activity of Clitoria ternatea Linn. against extended spectrum beta lactamase producing enteric and urinary pathogens. Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research 2: 94-96.
Kazuma, K., Noda, N. and Suzuki, M. 2003. Malonylated flavonol glycosides from the petals of Clitoria ternatea. Phytochemistry 62: 229–237. Mukherjee, P., Kumar, V., Kumar, N.S. and Heinrich, M. 2008. The ayurvedic medicine Clitoria ternateafrom traditional use to scientific assessment. Journal of enthnopharmacology 120: 291-301.
Table 1:Different petal colour of Aparajita with RHS colour description Flower colour
RHS description and code
Deep blue
Violet blue group 93 A
White corolla with different grades of Violet blue group 96 B,C,D or 97 A,B blue shades Lilac/mauve/violet Purple violet group 85 B,C White
White group NN 155 C,D
Fig. 1 Flowers of C. ternatea A. normal flower; B. flower with enlarged petals
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OAJMAP (2012)
Fig. 2: Dissected flowers of C. ternatea (normal flower on left side and multiple layered flower on the right side) A. standard petal; B. wing petals; C. keel petals
Fig. 3: Flowers of C. ternatea showing different colour variants A. white; B . liac; C. blue shaded; D. blue
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