• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.39-47
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• 1999

The flowers of Alcea rosea L., Malvaceae, sold in the Indian market under the trade name 'Gulkhairo', are well known for their expectorant, cooling and diuretic properties and used in many indigenous cough mixtures in India. The present paper deals with the detailed pharmacognosy of the floral parts including morphological, anatomical, phytochemical and fluorescence characters. Some of the diagnostic features of the drug are : pedicel characterized by multicellular appendages, stellate hairs, rosette crystals of Ca-oxalate, starch sheath and large sized mucilage canals; sepals having distinctive multicellular appendages arranged in a semilunar fashion present adaxially at their base; monadelphous stamens, pollen grains pentaporate provided with dimorphic spines; placentation axile, ovules campylotropous; dark green fluorescence of the powder with nitrocellulose in amyl acetate and yellow fluorescence of trichomes under Fluorescence microscope.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.295-302
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• 2018

In this study, we investigated the biological effects of Alcea rosea L. callus extract for the development of natural cosmetics ingredients. The antioxidant activities of A. rosea L. callus extract was measured through DPPH, ABTS and FRAP assay. As a result, A. rosea L. callus extract were found to have a strong antioxidant ability in a dose dependent manner. In addition, A. rosea L. callus effectively reduced the intracellular oxidative stress induced by AAPH at a concentration of 10 mg/mL. In a tyrosinase activity assay, we found that A. rosea L. callus extract reduced tyrosinase activity by 51% at 10 mg/mL. Based on these results, A. rosea L. callus extract is considered as a promising natural ingredients for cosmetics with antioxidant and whitening functions.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.468-475
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• 2020

Malva vein clearing virus (MVCV) is a member of the Potyvirus species, and has a negative impact on the aesthetic development of Alcea rosea. It was first reported in Germany in 1957, but its complete genome sequence data are still scarce. In the present work, A. rosea leaves with vein-clearing and mosaic symptoms were sampled and analyzed with small RNA deep sequencing. By denovo assembly the raw sequences of virus-derived small interfering RNAs (vsiRs) and whole genome amplification of malva vein cleaning virus SX strain (MVCV-SX) by specific primers targeting identified contig gaps, the full-length genome sequences (9,645 nucleotides) of MVCV-SX were characterized, constituting of an open reading frame that is long enough to encode 3,096 amino acids. Phylogenetic analysis showed that MVCV-SX was clustered with euphorbia ringspot virus and yam mosaic virus. Further analyses of the vsiR profiles revealed that the most abundant MVCV-vsiRs were between 21 and 22 nucleotides in length and a strong bias was found for "A" and "U" at the 5′-terminal residue. The results of polarity assessment indicated that the amount of sense strand was almost equal to that of the antisense strand in MVCV-vsiRs, and the main hot-spot region in MVCV-SX genome was found at cylindrical inclusion. In conclusion, our findings could provide new insights into the RNA silencing-mediated host defence mechanism in A. rosea infected with MVCV-SX, and offer a basis for the prevention and treatment of this virus disease.