Verbena officinalis (common vervain) is a medicinal plant species widely distributed in the world and commonly used in folk medicine of different countries, including traditional Chinese medicine. Monographs on “Verbenae herba” have been included in the European Pharmacopoeia since 2008, and in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia since 1995. This work presents botanical characteristics of this species. It reviews the current knowledge of its chemical composition, which is a rich source mostly of iridoids, phenylpropanoid glycosides, phenolic acids, flavonoids, terpenoids, and essential oil. A large part of this article summarizes traditional medicinal uses and professional pharmacological in vitro and in vivo studies that prove new important applications, e.g., antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective anticancer, analgesic, or anticonvulsant of verbena herb extracts and individual metabolites. Moreover, emphasis is put on the use of V. officinalis in the food and cosmetics industries, especially due to its antioxidant, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties, and the presence of essential oil with an attractive fragrance composition. This paper also presents the state of biotechnological studies of this species.

Downy mildew, incited by Phytophthora phaseoli Thaxt., is the most important disease of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.) on the east coast of the United States. It has been a serious threat to commercial lima bean production in Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey for the past 5 years. Growers have attempted to manage this disease using resistant cultivars and copper hydroxide fungicides. In August and September 1995, a new pathogenic race of P. phaseoli was isolated from infected pods of the lima bean cv. Packer in a production field near Milton, DE. Races of P. phaseoli are determined using a modification of a cultivar differential developed by Wester (3). The cv. 184–85, which is resistant to races A, B, C, and D (1), is susceptible to the new race, designated as E. In August 2000, another new pathogenic race of P. phaseoli was isolated from infected pods of cv. 184–85 near Middletown, DE. The lima bean line BG2-408, which is resistant to races A, B, C, D, and E, is susceptible to the new race, designated as F. Symptoms produced on lima bean plants infected by races E and F are similar to each other, and to those produced by all other races. All races of P. phaseoli have the same cultural characteristics on lima bean pod agar. Evaluations of in field weather station data and disease occurrence indicate that races E and F may have temperature maxima greater than 32°C, whereas race D has a maximum of less than 32°C (2). During the 2000 growing season, 118 isolates of P. phaseoli were collected from 44 production fields in Delaware and the eastern shore of Maryland, with 86% characterized as race E and 5% as race F. References: (1) C. R. Davidson et al. Biol. Cult. Tests 2001:V80. (2) R. A. Hyre and R. S. Cox. Phytopathology 43:419, 1953. (3) R. E. Wester. Phytopathology 60:1856, 1970.

Common vervain (Verbena officinalis L.) is a relatively new pharmacopoeial species in official European and also in Polish therapy. “Verbena herb” monograph has been included in the European Pharmacopoeia from 2008 i.e. from Ph. Eur. 6th, and in national translations of this document in EU member countries, including Polish Pharmacopoeia VIII. The current paper presents botanical characteristics of this species. It reviews current knowledge on chemical composition of common verbena herb, which is a rich source mostly of iridoids, phenylpropanoids glucosides, flavonoids and terpenes. A large part of the article summarizes medicinal uses of the plant and professional pharmacological studies which showed antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and anticancer actions of verbena herb compounds. Those studies confirmed its medicinal uses long known in European folk medicine and in Chinese medicine. In addition, it was emphasized that the common vervain plays an important role in food and cosmetic industries, especially due to its antioxidant, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties and the presence of essential oil with an attractive fragrance composition. This paper presents also state of biotechnological studies of this species. The studies in this field are carried out by two cooperating research teams in Poland: Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, Faculty of Pharmacy, Collegium Medicum, Jagiellonian University and Department of Pharmacognosy, Medical University of Gdańsk.

In Oklahoma, during the late summer of 2004, an elm tree (Ulmus americanus L.) located in the Oklahoma Botanical Gardens near Stillwater showed symptoms of marginal leaf scorch bordered by a yellow band between necrotic and green tissues, indicating possible Xylella fastidiosa infection. Three leaves from the symptomatic tree and one leaf from an asymptomatic nearby elm were sampled. DNA was extracted with the Extract-N-Amp kit (Sigma, St. Louis, MO). Samples were tested for X. fastidiosa using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with Xylella genus specific primers XfF1/XfR2 and dual-labeled TaqMan probe XfP2 (2). Infected oleander from California was used as a positive control. All three samples from symptomatic leaves and the positive control were PCR positive, and the sample from the asymptomatic tree was PCR negative. Attempts to culture an isolate of the bacteria from petioles and branch tissues on PD3 and PW, media selective for X. fastidiosa, failed. For more detailed molecular characterization of the putative pathogen, DNA from additional symptomatic petioles from the same tree was isolated using the cetyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) extraction. X. fastidiosa specific primers BBXFOUTF1 (5′-AAGCGCCTCCGTGAGTTATC-3′) and BBXFOUTR1 (5′-CCTTCACGCATATCATCACC-3′) were used to PCR amplify the gyrB gene. The amplification product was recovered after gel electrophoresis with QIAquick gel extraction kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA) and was subjected to automated sequencing (Oklahoma State University Recombinant DNA/Protein Resource Facility). BLASTN alignment (1) of the obtained 381 bp sequence revealed 100% identity with the gyrB gene from elm (GenBank Accession No. AF534966) and mulberry (GenBank Accession No. AF534965) isolates of X. fastidiosa. During 2005, petiole samples from the tree were collected and serological diagnosis was confirmed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Agdia, Inc., Elkhart, IN). Some strains of X. fastidiosa have very wide host ranges and many of the hosts may be asymptomatic. Therefore, the economic importance and implications of the detection of X. fastidiosa in the state of Oklahoma remain to be determined. To our knowledge, this is the first report of X. fastidiosa in Oklahoma. References: (1) S. F. Altschul et al. J. Mol. Biol. 215:403, 1990. (2) N. W. Schaad et al. Phytopathology 92:721, 2002.

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