| Summary: | Herein, a chemophenetic significance, based on the phenolic metabolite profiling of three <i>Senecio</i> (<i>S. hercynicus, S. ovatus</i>, and <i>S. rupestris</i>) and two <i>Jacobaea</i> species (<i>J. pancicii</i> and <i>J. maritima</i>), coupled to morphometric data, is presented. A set of twelve morphometric characters were recorded from each plant species and used as predictor variables in a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) model. From a total 75 observations (15 from each of the five species), the model correctly assumed their species’ membership, except for 2 observations. Among the studied species, <i>S. hercynicus</i> and <i>S. ovatus</i> presented the greatest morphological similarity. A phytochemical profiling of phenolic specialized metabolites by UHPLC-Orbitrap-MS revealed 46 hydroxybenzoic, hydroxycinnamic, and acylquinic acids and their derivatives, 1 coumarin and 21 flavonoids. Hierarchical and PCA clustering applied to the phytochemical data corroborated the similarity of <i>S. hercynicus</i> and <i>S. ovatus</i>, observed in the morphometric analysis. This study contributes to the phylogenetic relationships between the tribe Senecioneae taxa and highlights the chemophenetic similarity/dissimilarity of the studied species belonging to <i>Senecio</i> and <i>Jacobaea</i> genera.
|
|---|