Morphological, Chloroplast Markers, and Alkaloid Profiling Approaches to Identification of Four Fritillaria Taxa

Accurate identification of Fritillaria taxa is essential for quality control of Fritillariae Cirrhosae Bulbus. This study evaluated morphological analysis, chloroplast DNA barcoding, and steroidal alkaloid profiling across 40 individuals from four taxa (F. unibracteata, F. unibracteata var. wabuensis, F. cirrhosa, and F. taipaiensis) from Sichuan province, China. Among five chloroplast markers, ycf1 and rps4 were the most polymorphic, with nucleotide diversity of 0.065 to 0.116 and 0.035 to 0.120, respectively, and generally distinguished the four taxa into well-supported clades, though two F. unibracteata nested within the F. cirrhosa group. Morphologically, F. unibracteata var. wabuensis produced the largest bulbs, with a mean fresh weight of 26.99 g, approximately 24-fold greater than that of F. unibracteata at 1.12 g, whereas F. unibracteata and F. cirrhosa overlapped substantially in all measured traits. PCA revealed that biomass traits were slightly more discriminative, while central bud height contributed the least. Among the samples analyzed, alkaloid profiles provided the most distinct diagnostic signals: F. unibracteata var. wabuensis accumulated the highest sipeimine at 298.40 μg/g and sipeimine-3-β-D-glucoside at 156.30 μg/g; F. taipaiensis was richest in peimine and peiminine; F. unibracteata uniquely contained sipeimine-3-β-D-glucoside without detectable sipeimine; and F. cirrhosa showed the lowest levels across all five compounds. The integration of chloroplast markers with alkaloid profiling improved species discrimination for the samples examined. Chloroplast markers for initial screening followed by the alkaloid profiling of the ambiguous sample might offer a practical framework for the authentication and quality control of Fritillariae Cirrhosae Bulbus, but this strategy requires validation across broader geographic scales and with larger sample sizes.