Comprehensive Quality Analysis and Evaluation of Nine Representative Aralia elata Materials from the Changbai Mountain Region

To evaluate the comprehensive quality of Aralia elata from the Changbai Mountain region of Jilin Province, nine Aralia elata materials from the Changbai Mountain region of Jilin Province were selected as the research subjects. The growth indicators (including the plant height and the ground diameter), the appearance quality indicators of the terminal buds (including the basal diameter, the length, and the weight of the terminal buds) and the contents of the nutritional substances (including the contents of soluble sugars, soluble protein, crude fiber, total flavonoids, total saponins, and crude polysaccharide) were measured and analyzed. Moreover, the comprehensive qualities of the nine materials were evaluated and ranked, by integrating the membership function method and the principal component analysis. The results indicated that there were distinct differences in the growth indicators and the quality indicators among these materials. There were highly significant positive correlations between the plant height and the ground diameter, and the plant height was also significantly correlated with the contents of total saponin and crude fiber, respectively. There were also highly significant positive correlations among the length of the apical buds, the base diameter of the apical buds, and the fresh weight of the apical buds of the nine materials. Moreover, these three appearance quality indicators were successively significantly correlated with the contents of soluble sugars, crude fiber, and total flavonoids, respectively. The comprehensive evaluation values of the Huadian material was 0.92, which was the highest among the nine materials, and it can be used as the preferred material for the artificial cultivation of Aralia elata from the Changbai Mountain region. The comprehensive evaluation values of the Ji′an material, the Antu material, the Changbai material, the Liuhe materialand the Jiaohe material were also relatively high, and they can be also used in the artificial cultivation process of Aralia elata from the Changbai Mountain region. The findings of this study can offer a substantial foundation for material selection in the artificial cultivation of Aralia elata in the Changbai Mountain region.