Phylogenetic Tree of 50 Medicinal Plants in Shandong Province, China

Abstract

Medicinal plants are a valuable resource for a variety of products which are important for human needs. The fundamental step in the process has always been the characterization of species. This is the reason which connects the phytopharmaceutical sciences with taxonomy and species identification. The DNA-based method of identification has revolutionized this field in taking the taxonomy to the molecular level. 50 medicinal plants were selected. Two nucleotide sequences of each collected plant were selected and 100 nucleotide sequences downloaded from the NCBI database. MEGA11 Software was used to analyze those nucleotide sequences, and then Maximum Likelihood tree was reconstructed to reveal genetic relationship of 50 medicinal plants. The phylogenetic tree showed that majority nucleotide sequences of 50 medicinal plants can be clustered on the same branch with the same plants of their network.