Wild Saussurea lappa in the family Asteraceae is a highly endangered plant. On the other hand, the dried root of cultivated S. lappa (Radix Aucklandia, Muxiang) is a popular medicinal material for treating various gastrointestinal diseases. In the market, several medicinal plants including Vladimiria berardioidea, V. souliei, V. souliei var. mirabilis, Inula helenium and I. racemosa in the family Asteraceae and Aristolochia debilis in the family Aristolochiaceae have the trade name of Muxiang. To manage the concerned medicinal material, we investigated if the ITS and 5S rRNA intergenic spacers are effective for discriminating S. lappa from its substitutes and adulterants. Sequencing results showed that the similarities of ITS-1, ITS-2 and 5S rRNA intergenic spacers among S. lappa and related species were 56.3 – 97.8 %, 58.5 – 97.0 %, and 26.4 – 77.9 %, respectively. The intraspecific variation was much lower. There are also several unique changes in the S. lappa sequences that may be used as differentiation markers.
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