Enhanced electrochemical voltammetric fingerprints for plant taxonomic sensing

Graphene-embedded plant tissues show a high sensitivity to electrochemical signals, which enables a screen-printed electrode to be used for electrochemical fingerprint recording. The electrochemical fingerprints obtained under different conditions can be transformed into multidimensional recognition modes for plant identification. These electrochemical fingerprints reflect the types and quantities of the electrochemically active substances in plant tissues such that the fingerprints can be used for chemotaxonomic investigations. In this paper, five species of Lycoris bulbs, including L. chinensis, L. radiate, L. aurea, L. sprengeri and L. straminea, were successfully recognized by electrochemical fingerprinting. The species's interspecific relationships were also investigated. L. chinensis and L. aurea show highly similar morphology but have a relatively distant relationship. Hybridized L. radiata shows a notably close relationship with L. straminea, suggesting that one of its parents may be L. radiata. In addition, L. chinensis also shows a close relationship with L. straminea, suggesting that the L. straminea may be produced by cross-breeding L. chinensis and L. radiate. The results mentioned above indicate that the proposed electro-chemotaxonomic methodology is an inexpensive and quick taxonomic method that can provide additional evidence for the existing taxonomy system.