Morphological and qualitative characteristics of Rhodiola rosea L. wild populations of Trentino, Italy

Rhodiola rosea L. is a medicinal plant with many traditional and medicinal uses. The underground part is valued for its ability to enhance human resistance to stress or fatigue. During the last years, the Unita di ricerca per il Monitoraggio e la Pianificazione Forestale of Villazzano (Trento) has been gathering data and seeds of different alpine medicinal and aromatic plants with the aim of having a wider knowledge about these species in situ and carrying out an ex situ cultivation to assess their diversity and to verify if some accessions could give interesting results for future selection work. This paper reports the morphological and phytochemical data of the six wild roseroot populations collected in situ in 2010 in Trentino (Italy). Analytical determinations were obtained by HPLC-DAD. The measured data were as follows: length of shoots 23-44 cm, number of shoots 17-38, thickness of shoots 3.8-5 mm, leaf length 20.7-44.5 mm, leaf width 5.3-6.5 mm, salidroside content 0.27-1.16%, rosavin content 0.25-0.56%, rosin content 0.015-0.049%. In particular, the plants collected in Malga Bondolo, followed by Rifugio Larcher, had the highest values in all the recorded traits.