A microbial and insect perspective on mangrove health in South Africa

Several Pelargonium species indigenous to South Africa are highly valued for their horticultural value and medicinal properties.For hundreds of years various ethnic groups have used root extracts of P. sidoides as a remedy to treat coughs, upper respiratory tract irritations and gastrointestinal conditions.An ethanolic extract is used in the proprietary herbal tincture known as Umkaloabo® that is currently successfully marketed in Germany with sales that have escalated over 700%.The use of Commercial Herbal Products (CHP) have surged globally in recent years and as a result the phytomedicine industry is under immense pressure to develop rapid, accurate and economical methods for quality control, especially for the positive identification of raw materials.The taxonomic delimitation of the two taxonomic allies P. sidoides and P. reniforme has been debated in literature.Most consumer products explicitly refer to the botanical active as P. sidoides posing quality control concerns as P. sidoides and P. reniforme have not been proven to be pharmacologically equipotent.Here, we used DNA sequence information generated through standardized DNA barcoding techniques for the authentication of Pelargonium sidoides products.Furthermore, a DNA barcode reference library for the section Reniformia was added to the Barcode of Life Database and several herbal medicines tested, showed not to contain DNA material of Pelargonium species, indicating adulteration of the said products.Results as well as recommendations from the study will be presented.