Investigation of morphological, physiological and phytochemical characteristics of Euphorbia tirucalli L. in some natural habitats of Baluchistan

Didar (Euphorbia tirucalli L.) from the family Euphorbiaceae, is a perennial succulent shrub with broad branched and round branches. Environmental factors are one of the most important factors affecting qualitative and quantitative traits in medicinal plants. In this study, Didar was studied in different habitats of Sistan and Baluchestan province in terms of some morphological, physiological, soil, and phytochemical characteristics. This study was conducted as a nested design and Duncan's least significant differences test at 5% level with completely randomized design with three replications using field survey and included some cities: 1- Hichan district from Nikshahr city (Kalat, Hesarak and Hashtik villages), 2- Rask city (Firoozabad, Jangal and Parood villages) and 3- Sarbaz city (Hit, Kishkour and Pirdan villages). The results showed that there was a significant difference between all the studied traits among cities and regions. In this study, morphological traits had the highest amount in Nikshahr city and the lowest height and number of branches belonged to Sarbaz city, indicating that the vegetative growth of this shrub decreases with increasing altitude. The soil studied in Nikshahr city regions was more favorable than other areas in terms of key elements such as phosphorus and potassium. The highest levels of 1- chlorophylls a and b and carotenoids and 2- proline and flavonoids were measured in spring and summer, respectively, but the highest amount of anthocyanin was observed in different cities variably. The highest amounts of 1- chlorophylls a and b and 2- carotenoids and anthocyanin were measured in Sarbaz and Rask cities, respectively. The highest amount and number of active ingredients of leachates of this plant were observed in summer.