SOLANACEAE DIVERSITY IN VIETNAM: A PRELIMINARY TAXONOMIC INVENTORY FOR CONSERVATION AND UTILIZATION SUMMARY Solanaceae plays an important role in providing food, vegetables, spices, medicine, and ornamentals in Vietnam. However, solanaceous genetic resources are facing serious threats of erosion and eradication. Our objective is to give a survey on the diversity as well as an evaluation of the role of solanaceous indigenous plants in the local communities to identify the current status and its importance for conservation and sustainable utilization in the future. The data comes from a survey and a collection in central Vietnam as well as herbarium specimens from the collections of Solanaceae in Vietnam. An analysis of these specimens and the result from the survey show that Solanaceae in Vietnam

Solanaceae plays an important role in providing food, vegetables, spices, medicine, and ornamentals in Vietnam. However, solanaceous genetic resources are facing serious threats of erosion and eradication. Our objective is to give a survey on the diversity as well as an evaluation of the role of solanaceous indigenous plants in the local communities to identify the current status and its importance for conservation and sustainable utilization in the future. The data comes from a survey and a collection in central Vietnam as well as herbarium specimens from the collections of Solanaceae in Vietnam. An analysis of these specimens and the result from the survey show that Solanaceae in Vietnam includes 15 genera with 63 species. Besides, there are 6 species belonging to 5 genera being in question regarding the taxonomy. Three genera, Solanum (31 species), Lycianthes (7 species) and Physalis (5 species) represent 68% of the total number of species. Among the 63 recorded species, there are 29 wild species, 22 cultivated species and 12 species being wild and cultivated. 6 species are used as fruits, 41 species as medicine, 16 species as ornamentals, 4 species as spices and 22 species as vegetables. The indigenous solanaceous plants include 24 species belonging to three genera: Lycianthes (7 species), Solanum (13 species) and Tubocapsicum (1 species). The indigenous solanaceous species in Vietnam are mostly wild species, among them there are three endemic species as Lycianthes baviensis V. V. Hop, Solanum robinsonii Bonati and Solanum thorelii Bonati.


INTRODUCTION
Solanaceae is one of the most important families of flowering plants to human beings with considerable value in economical, agricultural, and medicinal respects (Bennett, 2010;Knapp et al., 2004;Wiart, 2006), especially valuable they are as vegetable crops (Hawkes, 1999;Mueller et al., 2005;Samuels, 2015).
In Vietnam, solanaceous plants play an important role in providing food, vegetables, spices, medicine and ornamentals as well as improving income for the local people (Chi, 1997;Ho, 1999;Hop and Phuong, 2003). In recent years, the solanaceous genetic resources in Vietnam are still facing serious threats of erosion and eradication. The main reasons are the fast replacement by new, highyielding crop varieties and the intensive farming process, human activities as destruction and non-rational exploitation of forests and lands, urbanization and modernization, the pressure of population with growing food demands, natural disasters along with negligence and insufficient management of humans (Sen and Trinh, 2010;Trinh, 1996).
The Solanaceae are ranked the eighth of 37 families in valuable and rare species that are needed to conserve in Vietnam including 107 rare genetic resources belonging to 26 species and 3 genera (MARD, 2005a), however, conservation of these species received very little attention so far (Tuong et al., 2010;Tuong et al., 2013). One of the biggest obstacles for the conservation of indigenous species including solanaceous species are incomplete statistics, classification and evaluation of them. This would be necessary especially for wild species having close relationships with crops in different ecological regions in Vietnam to provide information for ex-situ or in-situ conservation (Catacutan et al., 2014;Hue et al., 2012). Besides, determining and selection of important indigenous solanaceous genetic resources for conservation have not been done. Therefore, the utilization of germplasm collections, particularly in the wild species, is still very limited (PGRV, 2012;PGRV, 2014;Tuong, 2014;Tuong et al., 2010). The objective of this study is to give a survey on the diversity as well as the evaluation of the role of solanaceous indigenous plants in the local communities to identify the status as well as importance of them for conservation and sustainable utilization in the future.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was designed as an investigation based on the results of a survey and collection in 5 provinces in central Vietnam ( Figure 1) from September 2013 to February 2014 and the data come from 308 herbarium specimens from the collections of Solanaceae in Plant Genetic Resource in Vietnam.
The provinces were selected for the survey based on eco-geographic data (Guarino et al., 2005). Identification of Solanaceous species used the method of comparing morphological characteristics with using the identification keys by Ho (1999), Hop (2006) and Zhang (1994). Useful solanaceous plants were determined by surveys and interviews with 155 randomly-selected households base on questionnaire. Additionally, special collecting trips were organized with indigenous experts: traditional doctors, village elders and other local people who knew about useful plants. The information was also checked and compared with documents on medicinal plants by Loi (1995), Chi (1997), Ho (1999) and Batugal (Batugal et al., 2004).

Figure 1. Surveyed provinces in central Vietnam
Classification is based on system by Hunziker (2001). Solanaceous species are re-identified base on detail descriptions and they also updated scientific name according to The Plant List (2016) (version 1.1).
Comparing with some countries in Asia the number of genera and species of solanaceous plants in Vietnam is diversity of species ( Figure 3). Some genera belonging to Solanaceae are not found in Vietnam as Anisodus, Atropa, Atropanthe, Hyoscyamus, Mandragora, Nicandra, Nierembergia, Przewalskia, Physaliastrum, Physochlaina, Salpiglossis, Schizanthus, Scopolia, Solandra and Withania. However, the number of species in Solanum is quite large with 31 species (only smaller than China and Taiwan).    There are 29 wild species, 22 cultivated species and 12 species being wild and cultivated (Table 3 and Figure 4). Genus Solanum is highly diverse regarding morphological characteristics as well as its distribution in nature and species of Solanum are found everywhere from mountains areas to delta areas. Some wild species are distributed everywhere as Solanum nigrum L. and Solanum torvum Sw. while some species are only distributed in the mountains areas as Solanum erianthum D. Don. This genus has many species, which are very similar so it is easy to have confusion as Solanum capsicoides or Solanum viarum (Hop, 2006). Genus Lycianthes has 20 native species in South East Asia (Hunziker, 2001) in which 7 wild species in North Vietnam. This shows that Vietnam is also one of the central areas of this genus in Asia (Hop, 2006;Zhang et al., 1994).   None, recorded by G. Bonati (1927), Ho (1993), andNhan (1996) W The wild species belonging to Solanaceae in Vietnam have common features that grow near forests, wastelands, roadsides and thickets so it is quite convenient for humans to exploit and use them, but also easy to be negatively affected by human activities. The valuable species of solanaceous plants include 51 species (80,95 percentage of total species), in which 6 species for fruits, 41 species for medicine, 16 species for ornamentals, 4 species for spices and 22 species for vegetables (Table 3 and Figure 5). The important solanaceous species in Vietnam are Capsicum annuum L., Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., Nicotiana rustica L., Solanum tuberosum L. and Solanum melongena L.. The most important medicinal species is Solanum procumbens Lour. The indigenous solanaceous plants include 24 species belonging to three genera: Lycianthes (7 species), Solanum (13 species) and Tubocapsicum (1 species) ( Table 4).
The indigenous solanaceous species in Vietnam are mostly wild species, in which there are three endemic species including Lycianthes baviensis V. V. Hop, Solanum robinsonii Bonati and Solanum thorelii Bonati.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this analysis show that the Solanaceae flora of Vietnam is very diverse with 15 genera and 63 species. Solanum and Lycianthes are the most diverse species in Vietnam. Solanaceous species are mostly wild species, but the most cultivated species are introduced to Vietnam and there are 51 valuable species including 6 species for fruit, 41 species for medicine, 16 species for ornament, 4 species for spice and 22 species for vegetable. Economic value is mainly in vegetables and medicines. The indigenous solanaceous plants include 24 species belonging to three genera with three endemic species. Solanum album, Solanum melongena and Solanum procumbens are indigenous species with high value.