Desde os tempos mais ancestrais que se faz uso das plantas para o tratamento de doenças, havendo evidência dessa mesma utilização com mais de 5000 anos. Por isso, o continuo estudo de plantas é do maior interesse ao nível da descoberta de novos fármacos. Ao longo deste trabalho vão ser estudadas quatro espécies pertencentes ao género Juniperus, sendo estas, o Juniperus communis, o Juniperus oxycedrus, o Juniperus phoenicea e o Juniperus thurifera. Vão ser descritas as bioatividades apresentadas por estas espécies, descriminando a atividade antioxidante, atividade antimicrobiana, atividade anti-inflamatória, atividade herbicida, atividade gastro-protetora, atividade neuroprotetora, atividade hipoglicemiante e atividade antitumoral. A subespécie mais promissora demonstra ser o Juniperus oxycedrus subsp. badia e por isso são descritos alguns trabalhos laboratoriais que demonstraram o seu potencial antitumoral nas células tumorais do cancro do cólon, HT-29.

Tree-ring inter-annual pattern variation is crucial in dendrochronology, allowing the identification of possible limiting factors on growth. Thus, trees exposed to subtropical or tropical climates without a marked seasonality may show a low degree of interannual variation, impeding a straightforward dendroclimatological approach. Meanwhile, subtropical regions, and areas in transitional climates such as the Azores archipelago, are widely unexplored in terms of dendroclimatology, providing opportunities to work with endemic trees, including the dominant Azorean tree Juniperus brevifolia (Seub.) Antoine. To evaluate the dendrochronological potential of J. brevifolia, we analyzed tree-ring patterns, crossdating capabilities, and correlation with climate parameters. We sampled 48 individual trees from two natural populations (São Miguel and Terceira islands) using an increment borer. Besides, a Trephor tool was used to obtain wood microcores for micro-anatomical analysis. Although the transition between early and latewood was evident, partially indistinct ring boundaries and wedging rings were present in some cases, affecting the crossdating process, but not impeding the establishment of reliable ring-width chronologies. Following detrending, master chronologies were built and correlated with monthly temperature and precipitation data using the treeclim R package. The climate-growth relationships indicated negative correlations with late summer temperature in both populations. Considering our results and the importance of J. brevifolia as a dominant tree in the Azores natural forests, we conclude that it shows an acceptable potential for dendrochronological research. Thus, this study provides baseline information to help fill the knowledge gap regarding the climate-growth relationship of Azorean trees.

The genus Juniperus (family Cupressaceae) is one of the most numerous genera of the conifers (there are 102 accepted Latin binominal names). The plants are evergreen shrubs or trees, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere from the sea level to above timberline. Some Juniperus species are frequently used in medicinal purposes, for example Juniperus communis L. is used traditionally to cure tuberculosis while Juniperus oxycedrus L. is used in Turkey as a folk remedy in the treatment of diabetes. The richness of Juniperus species in essential oils and secondary metabolites type diterpenes, flavonoids and lignans contributes to its use in the folk medicine. Details on the most recent and relevant pharmacological studies on the bioactive secondary metabolites isolated from Juniperus species will be summarized and thoroughly discussed.

Juniperus is an important genus widely distributed in the North hemisphere and it is used in folk medicine as well as source of cedarwood oil, a natural product with several industrial applications. The genus has attracted a great interest in the scientific communits and it has been the subject ofmore than 320 published phytochemical studies in the last 35 years. It is mainly a source of sesquiterpenes, diterpenes and lignans, some of them with very promising biological activities. The compounds identified from Juniperus species during the period 1970-2004, except essential oils fractions, are compiled in this report togetherwith the biological activities of the Juniperus extracts and of the isolated pure compounds.

Vegetation attributes were consistent with the successional stage of each dome in the primary sere; however, the geomorphologic units did not follow the same pattern. The influence of the rates of plant colonization and soil formation are responsible for the decrease of the successional rates from footslopes, to summits, to slopes. The vegetation successionally changes from Juniperus scrub, to Juniperus wood and forest, and there is little species replacement since the similarity in species composition is high between the 3 domes.

The aim of this study was to characterize the individual phenolic profile and antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic, and antimicrobial activities of hydroethanolic and infusion extracts prepared from Algerian Saharan Juniperus phoenicea L. and Cotula cinerea (Del). The phenolic profile was determined using a liquid chromatograph coupled to a diode array detector and an electrospray ionization mass spectrometer (LC-DAD-ESI/MS). A total of thirteen and nine individual phenolic compounds were identified in J. phoenicea and C. cinerea, respectively. 3-p-Coumaroylquinic acid, quercetin- and myricetin-O-pentoside were the major compounds present in J. phoenicea; on the other hand, C. cinerea presented luteolin-7-O-glucoside, luteolin-O-malonylhexoside, and 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid as the main molecules. In general, all samples exhibited interesting antioxidant activity when compared to the standard Trolox, but J. phoenicea extracts presented the highest bioactivity. Likewise, all the samples exhibited anti-inflammatory activity; thus J. phoenicea hydroethanolic extracts showed the highest potential (88 ± 8 µg mL−1). In addition, their cytotoxicity was evaluated towards a panel of four selected cell lines (HeLa, NCI-H460, MCF-7 and HepG2), and all the extracts showed cytotoxic effects, with J. phoenicea extracts being the most effective. The in vitro antimicrobial activity of the plant extracts was moderate, Gram-positive bacteria thus being more sensitive than the Gram-negative strains (MIC values between 5 and 20 mg mL−1). The present work suggests that J. phoenicea and C. cinerea are sources of bioactive ingredients with potential use in the food and pharmaceutical industries.

How plants arrived to originally sterile oceanic islands has puzzled naturalists for centuries. Dispersal syndromes (i.e., diaspore traits that promote dispersal by long-distance dispersal vectors), are generally considered to play a determinant role in assisting island colonization. However, the association between diaspore traits and the potential vectors by which diaspores are dispersed is not always obvious. Fleshy fruits, in particular, are considered to have evolved to promote the internal dispersal of seeds by frugivores (endozoochory), however some fleshy fruits can also float in saltwater, and thus be potentially transported by oceanic current (thalassochory). We performed saltwater floatation and viability experiments with fruits of the 14 European fleshy-fruited species that naturally colonized the Azores archipelago (North Atlantic Ocean). We show that only Corema album (a berry) and Juniperus oxycedrus (a fleshy cone) floated for as long as 60 days, the estimated minimum time needed to reach the Azores by oceanic currents. Regardless the floatation potential, exposure to saltwater largely reduced the viability of most seeds of the 14 species (46% of viability decline within 15 days and 77% within 60 days of immersion), including those of Corema album (61%) and Juniperus oxycedrus (83%). Floatability and viability trials suggest that while some fleshy-fruited species might have arrived to the Azores by oceanic currents, such would have required extreme meteorological events that could largely reduce the duration of the trip. Thus, the alternative hypothesis that fleshy-fruited species were mostly dependent on animal dispersers (endozoochory) to colonize these remote islands is reinforced.

Este trabalho teve como objectivo reunir informação relativa à espécie Gymnosporangium cornutum Arthur ex Kern e está incluído na contribuição para o inventário e conservação de fungos da Flora Portuguesa. Em Agosto de 2004, um fungo identificado como ferrugem Gymnosporangium cornutum foi encontrado em Sorbus aucuparia na Serra da Estrela (Manteigas - estrada da Torre). Em 2005 e em 2007 teleutos de G. cornutum foram identificados em Juniperus spp., na Serra da Arrábida e na Mata dos Medos/Pinhal do Rei - Almada.

Introduction: Mediterranean countries, including Algeria, have medicinal plants used in folk medicine, such as Artemisia campestris L., Artemisia herba-alba Asso, Juniperus phoenicea L., Juniperus oxycedrus L., Mentha pulegium L., and Lavandula angustifolia Mill. It is noteworthy that the bioaccessibility of their polyphenolic ingredients have not been critically evaluated before. Methods: The bioactive properties of the aqueous extracts of Artemisia campestris L., Artemisia herba-alba Asso, Juniperus phoenicea L., Juniperus oxycedrus L., Mentha pulegium L., and Lavandula angustifolia Mill. were investi-gated. They were subjected to a simulated gastrointestinal digestion to evaluate the antioxidant, antimicrobial activities and total polyphenol contents. Their antiproliferative activities against three human cancer cell lines (MCF-7, T47D, and Caco-2) were also performed using the aqueous extracts. The phenolic profile was also studied by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to ultraviolet spectrometry detector (RP-HPLC-UV). Results: The results indicated that bioaccessibility of total phenolic compounds after the post-gastric, intestinal, and colon phases was in the ranges of 4.34-11.57 %, 0-0.55 %, and 3.92-9.24 %, respectively when compared with their aqueous extracts. Intestinal and colon phase samples collected from intestinal digestion of six plant extracts did not have any antioxidant activity. Juniperus spp. extracts had the highest antiproliferative activity compared to the results obtained from other tested species. Conclusions: The high antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of Juniperus samples may be attributed to the higher levels of total phenols, as well as the catechins, rutin and caffeic acid, whilst M. pulegium extract with the lowest phenolic content and lower amounts of these metabolites, having p-coumaric acid as a predominant phenolic compound, was shown to be less effective as an antioxidant and anticancer agent.