2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Anthurium is the most economically important cut flower in the Hawai’i floriculture industry. Major spathe colors in the market include red, orange, pink, white, and green Unique and rare purple colored anthuriums also exist. Spathe color is due largely to pigments known as anthocyanins. Anthocyanin profiling for anthurium has been done, but previous studies represented a few varieties. Anthurium hybrids were selected based on color and potential contribution to the cut flower breeding program. Anthocyanidins, the sugar free counterparts of anthocyanins, were selected for analysis because they are simpler to identify and quantify accurately with external standards. Flavonoid extraction methods from pitanga, Eugenia uniflora fruit (Wheeler, 2013), were adapted for the anthocyanidin extraction from anthurium spathes. Spathes were ground into fine powder (1 g) in liquid nitrogen then added to acidic methanol for extraction of anthocyanins, which were pre-purified to remove lypophyllic compounds, then hydrolyzed with acid to remove sugars. Hydrolyzed fractions were loaded into a Waters^TM Alliance 2695 Separations Module with a Waters^TM 996 Photodiode Array Detector and an XBridge^TM Peptide XB-C18 column. HPLC chromatograms from sample fractions were compared to anthocyanidin standards: cyanidin, pelargonidin, delphinidin, and peonidin. Cyanidin was highest in pink spathes, pelargonidin was highest in orange spathes, and white spathes had the least amount of total anthocyanidins.