Phyllodulcin (Phy)

This is a stub article. Phyllodulcin is an dihydroisocoumarin found in Hydrangea macrophylla and Hydrangea serrata. It is a sweetener 400-800 sweeter than sugar. Among wild plants ofHydrangea serrata in Japan, there are sweet plants whose leave contain a kind of isocoumarin, phyllodulcin, which happens to be 350 times as sweet as sucrose to the human tongue. In a primary beech forest in Ashu, Kyoto, the spatial distribution of sweet plants and temporal and the spatial distribution of phyllodulcin within and among plants were investigated using a high performance liquid chromatograph. The distribution of sweet plants was confined within a valley and was parapatric with non-sweet plants. A plant's characteristic phyllodulcin accumulation did not change, even when transplanted into the different habitats. The phyllodulcin content of the sweet plants varied greatly among plants, and the population mean peaked in July when the plants flowered.