Freshly harvested madder root, Rubia tinctorum, donated by the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. Photo: Jan Wouters

Component Two: Acquisition of Biological Sources
Plants and resins identified for analysis were purchased at pharmacies in Dunhuang and Beijing, and at Chinese pharmacies the Los Angeles area. Items not available at pharmacies were acquired from botanical gardens in the United States and China. Some sources were purchased at the chemical market in Old Delhi, India. Validation of the species was necessary to ensure accuracy; this was done with Liquid Chromatography-Photodiode Array-Mass Spectrometry (LC-PDA-MSn).

A database will be designed to manage the acquisition, horticultural, and reference information for each biological source.

Flying Apsaras Pharmacy in Dunhuang, China. Photo: Cecily M. Grzywacz.	The project team purchasing biological source material at the Flying Apsaras Pharmacy in Dunhuang, China. Photo: Cecily Grzywacz.