Objective: To study the identification characters of Abutilon indicum and its confused herb A. theophrasti and establish an identification method.
Method: LMVP (leaf morphological-venation pattern for identification Chinese herbs), and QAERM (quantitatively analyze and evaluate reliability for the method of identification Chinese herbs) were applied for the study.
Result: The main differences of the leaf of Abutilon indicum: leaf margin cilia short and not clear (75-200 microm), petiole top with long straight hairs (up to 1.0-1.2 cm), when the tertiary veins and intersecondary veins issue from the lower part of midrib, their angles of divergence usually were wide acute (65 degrees-80 degrees) and a few was about right angle (80 degrees-100 degrees). The main differences of the leaf of A. theophrasti: leaf margin cilia long and clear (200-500 microm), petiole top with short straight hairs (most 0.1-0.5 mm), when the tertiary veins and intersecondary veins issue from the lower part of midrib, their angles of divergence usually were about right angle (80 degrees-100 degrees) and a few was wide acute (65 degrees-80 degrees). With the mentioned three groups of key differences, the both plants could be successfully identified from each other. The accuracy of identification results (AC) was from 97.5% to 99.6%, the repeatability of identification results: agreement rate for observation (ARO) was 97.1% and Kappa value was 0.94.
Conclusion: The established method is simple, rapid, economic and reliable.