Horticultural collections of ornamental plants are vital elements in our efforts to conserve threatened plants, such as species of the staghorn fern genus Platycerium. Accurate species identification in these collections is often challenging but crucial to ensure the objectives of ex situ conservation.

In a study published in Integrative Conservation, researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) promote the establishment of reference DNA barcode libraries as an effective approach to take on the challenge to detect mislabeled accessions. They tried to fulfill the promise of DNA barcoding to obtain reliable identification of all accessions of staghorn ferns maintained in botanical garden collections, and thus to overcome the limitations of traditional morphology-based identification, which largely restricted reliable identification to fully mature sporophytes.

The researchers assembled a reference dataset by employing a total of 287 accessions that were mainly obtained from the staghorn fern collections cultivated at XTBG. Five chloroplast genome loci were assessed as DNA barcodes reflecting their wide utilization in plant systematics.

All five regions can reliably segregate different staghorn fern species. While the majority of the cultivated accessions were correctly identified, some cases of mislabeling were recovered. The study confirmed the utility of DNA barcodes for the identification of most cultivated individuals of staghorn ferns.

"This is very encouraging for the horticultural community, as it shows widespread mislabeling is not the norm," explained LIU Hongmei. "However, the discovery of any misidentified plants within collections intended for conservation is a serious concern. It underscores the necessity of applying DNA-based tools to verify the identity of these valuable plants."

The study concluded that the creation of species-specific DNA barcode libraries is presented as an effective and practical approach to enhance the management of horticultural collections and ensure that the promise of ex situ conservation is fully realized.

Staghorn ferns (Platycerium) cultivated at XTBG.

Contact

LIU Hongmei Ph.D

Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, the Chinese Academy of Sciences

E-mail: liuhongmei@xtbg.ac.cn 

First published: 09 September 2025