الفهرس 
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Abstract
German Chamomile (Matricaria recutitaL.) is considered one of the most renowned medicinal plant species of Asteraceae family.
It is one of the herbal drugs of high economic value due to its vast pharmacological and pharmaceutical properties.
It possesses several classes of therapeutically active constituents including sesquiterpene lactones, flavonoids, coumarins and phenolic acids. Most suppliers rely on naturally-growing hand-picked plant material due to its low expense.
This makes the plant highly prone to adulteration due to false identification as well as intentional substitution by morphologically similar flowers; such as Anthemis cotulaand co-growing weeds; hepatotoxic Seneciospecies.
Its adulteration raises an important problem on the collected plant raw material which leads to, not only lower efficacy, but also possible toxicity risks.
Milk thistle (Silybum marianumL.) is a well-reputed hepato-protective agent; such activity is mainly attributed to its silymarin ’’flavonolignans’’ content. Silymarin is a mixture of positional and diasteromeric isomers formed by linkage of lignin moiety; coniferyl alcohol with flavonidal moiety; taxifolin. S. marianumsamples are categorized into 3 chemotypes; A, B and C. Chemotype A is characterized by high content of both silybin and silychristin, chemotype B is defined by its richness in silydianin, while chemotype C is considered as a hybrid between chemotypes A and B. Silymarin is used for various liver aliments and disorders that arise from cell impairment or necrosis including alcoholic and enlarged liver. S. marianumgenoty pespossess different morphological characteristics and different accumulation pattern of silymarin isomers and thus are potential candidates for chemical and genetic investigation.