Publications

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Sorting out the plants responsible for a contamination with pyrrolizidine alkaloids in spice seeds by means of LC-MS/MS and DNA barcoding: Proof of principle with cumin and anise spice seeds Meise Botanic Garden

Marie Willocx, Iris Van der Beeten, Pieter Asselman, Lynn Delgat, Wim Baert, Steven B. Janssens, Frederik Leliaert, Jean-François Picron, Celine Vanhee
High value commodities such as spices suffer from occasional contaminations of both chemical and biological origin. Consequently, quality control and safety monitoring has become a pressing issue for the spice industry. Two recent independent studies showed that at least one third of the analyzed cumin and green anise spice seeds samples surpassed the by the European Union recently established threshold value for toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids ...

Red List of the endemic and subendemic trees of Central African (Democratic Republic of the Congo - Rwanda - Burundi) Meise Botanic Garden

Marc[us] Simon Maria Sosef, Roy Gereau, W.R.Q. Luke, Salvator Ntore, Murielle Simo-Droissart, Tariq Stévart, Wesley Tack
This publication provides a brief introduction to the central African region, its trees and vegetation and the IUCN Red List methods followed. This part is followed by the IUCN Red List evaluations of 347 tree taxa (sub)endemic to Central Africa. Every taxon is illustrated and comes with a distribution map.

A Cryptic Invader of the Genus Persicaria (Polygonaceae) in La Palma and Gran Canaria (Spain, Canary Islands) Meise Botanic Garden KU Leuven

Filip Verloove, Rainer Otto, Steven B. Janssens, Sang-Tae Kim
A cryptic invader of the genus Persicaria has recently increased in the damper, northern parts of La Palma and Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands (Spain) and locally behaves as an invasive species. Examination of historical herbarium specimens showed this species to be present in Gran Canaria since the 1960s and the same probably applies to La Palma. Up to now, this species had been assigned to the Old World weed P. maculosa. However, ...

Coffee leaves: An upcoming novel food? Meise Botanic Garden

Andrea Montis, Florence Souard, Cédric Delporte, Piet Stoffelen, Caroline Stévigny, Pierre Van Antwerpen

Unlike those of coffee beans, the healthy properties of coffee leaves have been overlooked for a long time, even if they are consumed as a beverage by local communities of several African countries. Due to the presence of xanthines, diterpenes, xanthones, and several other polyphenol derivatives as main secondary metabolites, coffee leaves might be useful to prevent many daily disorders. At the same time, as for all bioactive molecules, ...

Preliminary study on the Solanum nigrum L. (Solanaceae) complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Meise Botanic Garden

B. Bikandu, Félicien Lukoki Luyeye, Steven B. Janssens, Timothée Le Péchon, Marc[us] Simon Maria Sosef
Background and aims – Black nightshade, or the Solanum nigrum complex, includes a number of species that botanists consider problematic due to their morphological resemblance and the high rate of hybridization between the species. As part of the revision of the family Solanaceae for the Flore d’Afrique centrale, we realized a molecular a study ofon the Solanum nigrum complex was carried out in the western part of the Democratic Republic of the ...

Hybridization of Oxalis corniculata and O. dillenii in their non-native range Meise Botanic Garden KU Leuven

Quentin J. Groom, Sofie Meeus, Steven B. Janssens, Leen Leus, Ivan Hoste

Many species have been introduced beyond their native ranges and many have become global weeds. Human mediated dispersal has removed the geographic isolation of these species, reversing millions of years of independent evolution. Examples are the Oxalis species in section Corniculatae where several species have become invasive. Here we characterize and formally describe a hybrid between O. dillenii and O. corniculata, which occurs ...

Four flowering plant species described from Katanga (D.R.Congo) are based on specimens collected in Guangxi, China. The H.A. Homblé collection in BR Meise Botanic Garden

Elmar Robbrecht, Sofie De Smedt, Paul Goetghebeur, Piet Stoffelen, Filip Verloove
The original set of botanical collections of the agronomist H.A. Homblé is conserved in the herbarium BR. Homblé was one of the first collectors (1911–1913) for the flora of Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many Homblé specimens were described as taxonomic novelties; 107 tropical African plant species are named after him. Before his colonial career in Katanga, Homblé stayed about two years (1909–1911) in Guangxi, China. His ...

Implementation and legal issues of DNA-based monitoring Meise Botanic Garden

Pieter Boets, Daniel Hering, Patricia Mergen
DNA-based methods are at the edge of being implemented into routine monitoring systems. WG5 aimed to develop implementation options for DNA-based methods under a range of environmental directives and legal frameworks, in particular the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the UN SDGs, the Global Biodiversity Assessment under the IPBES, the CBD Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, the digital ...

Tectonics, climate and the diversification of the tropical African terrestrial flora and fauna Meise Botanic Garden

Thomas Couvreur, G. Dauby, Anne Blach-Overgaard, V. Deblauwe, Steven Dessein, Vincent Droissart, Olivier Hardy, D. Harris, Steven B. Janssens, Alexandra Ley, et al.

Tropical Africa is home to an astonishing biodiversity occurring in a variety of ecosystems. Past climatic change and geological events have impacted the evolution and diversification of this biodiversity. During the last two decades, around 90 dated molecular phylogenies of different clades across animals and plants have been published leading to an increased understanding of the diversification and speciation processes generating tropical ...