The sources and quality of Iranian honey.

Iran is one of the largest honey-producing countries worldwide and is considered as an important source of honey for international markets. However, since Iran is not registered for honey export to Europe, the quality of Iranian honey remains unknown to European traders. As the first step in filling this gap, we analyzed 225 honey samples using palynology, sensory, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and conventional physicochemical analyses as outlined by the European Union coordinated control plan.

An updated tribal classification of Lamiaceae based on plastome phylogenomics.

Background: A robust molecular phylogeny is fundamental for developing a stable classification and providing a solid framework to understand patterns of diversification, historical biogeography, and character evolution. As the sixth largest angiosperm family, Lamiaceae, or the mint family, consitutes a major source of aromatic oil, wood, ornamentals, and culinary and medicinal herbs, making it an exceptionally important group ecologically, ethnobotanically, and floristically. The lack of a reliable phylogenetic framework for this family has thus far hindered broad-scale biogeographic studies and our comprehension of diversification.

Employing DNA metabarcoding to determine the geographical origin of honey.

Unfavourable climatic conditions force Iranian beekeepers to translocate over large distances in the course of the year. However, irrespective of the main place of production, the honey is always labeled with the name of the beekeepers' hometown, which leads consequently to mislabeled products. The present study investigates the capability of DNA metabarcoding to locate the geographical origin of honey.

Leveraging plastomes for comparative analysis and phylogenomic inference within Scutellarioideae (Lamiaceae).

Scutellaria, or skullcaps, are medicinally important herbs in China, India, Japan, and elsewhere. Though Scutellaria is the second largest and one of the more taxonomically challenging genera within Lamiaceae, few molecular systematic studies have been undertaken within the genus; in part due to a paucity of available informative markers. The lack of informative molecular markers for Scutellaria hinders our ability to accurately and robustly reconstruct phylogenetic relationships, which hampers our understanding of the diversity, phylogeny, and evolutionary history of this cosmopolitan genus.

Molecular phylogeny of tribe Stachydeae (Lamiaceae subfamily Lamioideae).

Although tribe Stachydeae (Lamiaceae) is considered monophyletic, relationships within the tribe are still poorly understood. The complexity of Stachydeae includes paraphyletic genera, considerable morphological plasticity, a range of ploidy levels, and presumably frequent natural hybridization. We performed parsimony and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of nuclear (ribosomal ITS) and plastid (trnL intron, trnL-trnF spacer, rps16 intron) DNA sequence data from a taxonomically and geographically broad sampling of the tribe to identify major evolutionary lineages and to test taxonomic hypotheses within this largest of all lamioid tribes.