SEED ALKALOID COMPOSITION OF LUPINUS-TASSILICUS MAIRE (FABACEAE, GENISTEAE) AND COMPARISON WITH ITS RELATED ROUGH SEEDED LUPIN SPECIES

Seed alkaloid composition of L. tassilicus from African Central Sahara was studied and compared with its related rough seeded Old World lupi n species. Epilupinine and multiflorine clearly represented the major alkaloids (90-99% of total yield) in all the 12 samples of the five sp ecies surveyed. Alkaloid data did not reveal significant qualitative c hanges among samples and provided a real fingerprint for the whole gro up of rough seeded lupins. On the basis of the ratio of epilupinine to multiflorine, it was possible to distinguish two subgroups of populat ions: on one side, those accumulating predominantly multiflorine and e ssentially distributed in Mediterranean region; on the other side, tho se containing epilupinine as the major alkaloid and mainly originated from the desert and arid regions of Africa. Alkaloid data support the close affinity between the L. tassilicus forms of Algeria and Libya, a nd between these latters and L. digitatus from Egypt. However, further investigations are still to be developed to elucidate the taxonomic s tatus of L. tassilicus within the rough seeded lupin species group. Co pyright (C) 1996.