Iridoids from Scutellaria goulimyi Rech. f., Lamiaceae. Morphological and chemical relations with Scutellaria albida L. ssp albida

Scutellaria goulimyi is a plant of the Lamiaceae family, endemic of the W Aegean island of Evvia (Trigas and Iatrou, 2006). With a chromosome number of 34, it can be found in Northern Evvia at an altitude of 250–700 m, growing equally well on both serpentine and limestone substrate. The influence of serpentines in speciation processes in plants is well known (Kruckeberg, 1951, 1954, 1967; Proctor and Woodell, 1975).

The endemism related to ultramafic substrate on Evvia, exhibits a mixture of evolutionary recent and older taxa, which can be grouped into certain categories with respect to their origin. S. goulimyi is considered as a neoendemic, whose taxonomic relative, Scutellaria albida s. l., has a distribution from N.

Italy to Iran. It may be the result of an adaptation of older populations to the special ecological conditions of the ophiolitic substrate. Strong crossing barriers were observed in S. goulimyi Rech. fil., and, in spite of little morphological differentiation from S. albida L. s. str., it is treated as a separate species (Bothmer, 1985).

The S. albida group is predominantly white flowering, often with purple spots on the lower corolla lip (nectar guidance). (Bothmer, 1991). Given the close relationship between the two species (Bothmer, 1991), we undertook to investigate chemical similarities between S. goulimyi and S. albida L. ssp albida (Gousiadou et al., 2007; 2012) for taxonomic purposes.

To our knowledge, this is the first report concerning the chemical fingerprint of S. goulimyi. The aerial parts of S. goulimyi were collected at Northern Evvia in June 2010 and a voucher specimenwas deposited in the Herbarium (ACA- Gousiadou 010).