Analysis of Psoralea corylifolia L. fruits in different regions.

Application of multivariate data analysis has become a popular method in the last decades, mainly because it can provide information not otherwise accessible. The information includes classification, searching similarities, finding relationships, finding physical significance to principal components, etc. Twenty-two Chinese medicinal herbs containing twelve constituents were collected and determined by HPLC. The results were studied by hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal components analysis (PCA). It was shown that the samples could be clustered reasonably into three groups, hence corresponding with the typical habitats of Psoralea corylifolia L.