ABSTRACT Picris japonica Thunb., Asteraceae, is an herbal medicine used to dispel heat, reduce swelling and alleviate pain in traditional Mongolian medicine. Its dried whole plant is mainly used to treat flu and mammary abscesses. Given the potential applications of such an herb, detailed pharmacognostic research on P. japonica is needed. This study attempted to fill this need by producing permanent and semi-permanent slides of different organs (root, stem, leaf, pollen grain, fruit and powder of the whole plant) using safranine staining, safranine-fast green double staining and common methods. Furthermore, several featured microscopic structures of P. japonica are described herein. The results obtained provide us with valuable information for botanical quality control and species identification and enable us to detect adulterations in commercial samples of Picris or in laboratory samples.

The efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose can be improved by various pretreatments of the substrate. In order to increase the efficiency of enzymatic saccharification of the wheat straw, we determined the effect of different pretreatments on the physical structure, chemical components and enzymatic saccharification of wheat straw. Our results showed that combination of grinding and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) treatment had high effect on the enzymatic hydrolysis of wheat straws. The optimal pretreatment condition was to grind the wheat straws into the sizes of 120 meshes followed by treatment with 1.0% NaOH for 1.5 h (121°C/15psi). Under this condition, the cellulose content of wheat straw was increased by 44.52%, while the content of hemicellulose and lignin was decreased by 44.15% and 42.52%, respectively. Scanning Electronic Microscopy and infrared spectrum analyses showed that significant changes occurred in the structure of wheat straws after pretreatment, which is favorable for the hydrolysis and saccharification. Cellulase produced by Penicillium waksmanii F10-2 was used to hydrolyze the pretreated wheat straw and the optimal condition was determined to be 30 h of enzymatic reaction under the temperature of 55°C, pH 5.5 and substrate concentration of 3%.