Field Collection and Laboratory Routine Identification of Rhodiola crenulata

Here, we describe the identification of Rhodiola Crenulata from habitat, plant morphology, medicinal properties, microscopic features, and thin-layer chromatography.

The identification of medicinal materials is the premise and guarantee of drug safety. The majority of scientific researchers are bound to favor the simple, fast, effective, and inexpensive identification process of herbals. Rhodiola crenulata is a traditional Tibetan medicine grown at high altitudes, mainly distributed in Tibet, Yunnan, and Sichuan regions of China. Rhodiola crenulate possesses multiple bioactivities, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-hypoxia, and antioxidant properties, and has great potential for development. With the increasing market demand and a rapid decrease in resource content, a large number of confused products of Rhodiola crenulata have been troubling people. Therefore, this protocol introduces a standard process for the identification of Rhodiola crenulata in the field combined with routine laboratory testing. The combination of habitat, microscopic features, and thin-layer chromatography will undoubtedly identify Rhodiola crenulata quickly, efficiently, and economically, contributing to the continuous development of Tibetan medicine and the quality control of medicinal materials.

Herbal medicine has a long history and rich application experience in China, and it was the first systematic recording in Shennong's herbal classic¹. The discovery of artemisinin applied to malaria promoted the development of herbal medicine into a new stage¹. The use of modern scientific technology to uncover the exact mechanism of herbal medicine increases the utilization rate and demand for herbal medicine, opening a new international market for it^2,3,4. However, this has led to a series of negative effects. Non-professio....

Rhodiola crenulata is collected from Zhuoda Snow Mountain, Ganzi County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China (N 31.44570°, E 99.96086°, 4892 m). The plants are authenticated as genuine by Professor Yi Zhang at the School of Ethnic Medicine, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

1. Collection of Rhodiola crenulata

1. Photograph the habitat map of Rhodiola crenulata.
2. Photograph the who.......

This experimental protocol describes identifying and collecting Rhodiola crenulate in the field. Rhodiola crenulate tends to live in the alpine talus zones, gully slopes, and rock crevices at high altitudes. The habitat, whole plant, flower, and leaves of Rhodiola crenulate can be shown in Figure 2. Rhodiola crenulate has a reddish-brown rhizome (Figure 3A). A representative image of the medicinal powder is shown in

There are more than 90 species of Rhodiola plants in the world, and more than 60% of all species are found in China, common ones including Rhodiola crenulata, Rhodiola rosea, Rhodiolas achalinensis, and Rhodiola algida¹⁷. Rhodiola crenulata, recorded in the first part of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2020), is a traditional Tibetan medicine grown at high altitudes. The market demand for Rhodiola crenulata is increasing yearly, so ensuring the correct use o.......

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81973569, 82274207 and 82104533), the Xinglin Scholar Research Promotion Project of Chengdu University of TCM (XKTD2022013), and the Key Research and Development Program of Ningxia (2023BEG02012).