Effects Of Harvesting Time And Rocessing Methods On The Quality Of Flos Lonicerae

Chinese honeysuckle (Flos Lonicerae) is the dried flower bud of Lonicera. japonica Thunb., from the Caprifoliaceae, which contains chlorogenic acid and flavonoids with many important functions such as antimicrobial, antinflammation, antioxidation, etc.In the present paper, the Chinese honeysuckle samples were collected from the honeysuckle GAP base and the wild places at Hanzhong area in the south of shaanxi province. These samples were used as the test materials, and were investigated by several methods, such as HPLC, photocolorimetry, GC-MS, diacolation and column chromatography. The paper mainly focused on the influence of the different drying techniques to the appearance traits and the qualities of honeysuckles, the bioactives (chlorogenic acid and total flavonoids) content changes in different growth stages, and the effects of the composition traits by the different harvesting time, drying methods and the different extraction solvents. Besides these, the purification method of the chlorogenic acid from Flos Lonicerae was also investigaed. The main results were as follows.1.The influences to the appearance traits and the quality of Flos Lonicerae by several drying methods, including vacuum drying, freeze-drying, microwave drying, drying after steaming, oven drying and insolation were investigated. The results showed that the appearance traits and the quality by the treatment of microwave drying, drying after steaming, freeze-drying were better than the other methods. The colorimetry and HPLC were used to determine the contents of total flavonoids and chlorogenic acid in Flos Lonicerae, respectively. The contents of chlorogenic acid and total flavonoids achieved 3.220% and 11.481% in the samples with drying after steaming, respectively. Microwave drying and vacuum drying were in the middle, and the lowest content of chlorogenic acid with 1.442% that was lower the regulation of CP, occurred after oven drying. Drying methods have less influence on the free amino acids and soluble sugar. There was no significant difference on the contents of free AA and dissolubility sugar by different drying methods treatments. The results indicated that different drying methods had different influence on the appearance traits and effective compositions in Flos Lonicerae.