This paper investigated the DNA barcoding of indigenous cinnamon. The essential oil composition of leaves and the partial non-coding internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) region of ribosomal genes from indigenous cinnamon plants (Cinnamomum osmophloeum Kanch.) were investigated. Leaf essential oils from seven geographical strains of C. osmophloeum Kaneh. were obtained by hydrodistillation and characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Six chemotypes, including cinnamaldehyde, cinnamaldehyde/cinnamyl acetate, cinnamyl acetate, linalool, camphor and mixed, were identified. Seven representative geographical strains were further used to study their genetic diversity based on the partial ITS2 region using PCR amplification and DNA sequencing to evaluate the region's use in the application of DNA barcoding C. osmophloeum Kanch. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using UPGMA clustering method. Our results indicate that the partial ITS2 nucleotide sequences for all seven geographical strains are identical and not correlated with essential oil composition. The partial ITS2 sequences is sufficient for barcoding C. osmophloeum Kaneh., while that additional genes will need to be analyzed to identify samples of various chemotypes. We believe that this partial ITS2 locus serves as a good starting point for large-scale testing of DNA barcoding of other plant species across Taiwan.
