Objective: To study the identification characters of Baphicacanthus cusia and its confused herb Clerodendrum cyrtophyllum and establish an identification method.
Methods: 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.
Results: The main differences of the leaf were as follows: Baphicacanthus cusia: leaf base attenuate, dry leaves deep dull blue green, spindle spots, no or small glandular scales somewhere, the limit between midrib and petiole was not clear, below undermost secondary vein some tertiary veins issue from midrib; Clerodendrum cyrtophyllum: leaf base not attenuate; dry leaves yellow green, green, green yellow, yellow brown, no spindle spots, densely covered by glandular scales,the limit between midrib and petiole was clear, below undermost secondary vein none tertiary veins issue from midrib. With the mentioned six groups of key differences, the both plants could be successfully identified from each other. The accuracy of identification results (AC) was from 98.5% to 99.2%, the repeatability of identification results: agreement rate for observation (ARO) was 97.7% and Kappa value was 0.95.
Conclusion: The established method is simple, rapid, economic and reliable.