Flavonoids are the most abundant functional compounds distributed in higher plants, and are used as important dietary components for human health protection. The development of natural flavonoids, such as functional food or medicinal food, has received extensive attention in recent years. The extraction, separation, and quantitation of flavonoids are the key techniques in the utilization of flavonoid resources. The traditional methods for flavonoid extraction and separation always used toxic solvents, which produce toxic residues and pollute the environment. Based on an analysis of the literature on flavonoid resources, the utilization, separation, quantitation, and green separation techniques of flavonoids were summarized. First, extraction by hot water or hot ethanol, assisted by pressurization and microwave-ultrasonication, then concentration and precipitation of flavonoids by cool water or cool ethanol or ethanol/water in specific ratios. This method could obtain over 85% purity in the first cycle and over 95% purity after three precipitation cycles in the separation of the most commonly used flavonoids, such as dihydromyricetin, rutin, and quercetin. In conclusion, flavonoids showed great prospects in human health protection and disease treatment. Chemical structure-based separation using the water–ethanol methods and assisted with microwave-ultrasonication, pressurization, and temperature regulation proved to be efficient and environmentally friendly, showing great potential for the flavonoid industry. These “green” processing techniques and mechanisms deserve further research.

Epimedium flavum Stearn, which belongs to Berberidaceae, is mainly distributed in the Sichuan province of China. In this study, the complete chloroplast genome of E. flavum was reported for the first time. The whole genome of E. flavum was 159,134 bp in length, and revealed a typical quadripartite structure, including two copies of an inverted repeat (IR) region of 27,735 bp separating a large single-copy region (LSC, 86,576 bp) and a small single-copy region (SSC, 17, 088 bp). The chloroplast genome contained 112 unique genes, including 78 protein-coding genes, 30 tRNA genes, and 4 rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis showed that E. flavum of series Davidianae was firstly clustered with E. brevicornu of ser. Brachyerae.

Osmunda japonica sporophyll is a medicinal food source in China and Southeast Asia. However, its functional components are still unknown and its spores are not utilized. This study aims to analyze the main functional compounds of its sporophylls and spores. Selenium-enrichment cultivation of O. japonica was conducted and the main components of sporophylls and spores were comparatively analyzed using ultraviolet-visible spectrum, high performance liquid chromatagraphy and mass spectrum. The common phenolics of spores and sporophylls were chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid and kaempferol-3-rutinoside; sporophylls contained one more component as caffeic acid-3-O-(2’-O-butenyl) rahmnoside; caffeic acid was the main phenolic component in spores (2.15±0.09 g/100g, dried weight); contents of caffeic acid (2.36±0.1 g/100g, dried weight), kaempferol-3-rutinoside (2.69±0.15 g/100g, dried weight), polysaccharides (3.53±0.23 g/100g, dried weight), carotenoids (364±34.9 mg/100g, fresh weight) and chlorophylls (437±40.2 mg/100g, fresh weight) of spores were all significantly higher than those of sporophylls (P＜0.05). The organic selenium components of spores were Se-Cys(selenocysteine) and Se-Met (selenomethoine); Se-Cys, Se-Met, chlorogenic acid, carotenoids and chlorophylls were all significantly increased by selenium enrichment (R²＞0.9). In conclusion, selenium-enriched japonica spores showed highly nutritional and medicinal values and should be developed as a new medicinal food source and selenium supplementation food source.

The new species Lycium mellitum J. Z. Dong (Solanaceae) is established and illustrated from Qinghai province of China. It has a close association with L. ruthenicum and L. ostrum J.Z. Dong, but is distinguished by several morphological characters: stems much branched, thorns at nodes or not, usually clustered with leaves and flowers; leaves narrowly linear, fleshy, gray, usually apically light yellow; pedicel 10-20 mm long; berries orange-yellow, nearly transparent, inside placenta faintly visible; seeds 1-5, rarely more, light brown. Bangladesh J. Plant Taxon. 32(1): 123-127, 2025 (June)

The new species Reineckea flava J. Z. Dong (Liliaceae) is described and illustrated from Guangxi, China. It differs from R. carnea (Andrews) Kunth in having slanting rhizomes with short oblate internodes (shorter axis 4–6 mm × longer axis 8–14 mm), with thick and short adventitious roots at nodes, narrowly lanceolate leaves (5–10 mm broad), and yellow-orange fruits.