Abstract: Leonurus japonicus Houtt. [L. heterophyllus Sweet, L. artemisia (Lour.) S. Y. Hu] is one of the most important traditional Chinese medicines used as a remedy for gynaecological disease since ancient times. A cytological investigation on the species was carried out and the materials for chromosomal examination were collected from 26 localities in 20 provinoes and autonomous regions of this country. The number of chromosomes in root tip cell of the species was found to be 20 on the whole (Tab. 1:1), agreeing with those reported by Ma and al.^[2] and probably by Chuang and al.^[3] as well. The genus Leonurus L. is variable in its chromosomes with an aneuploidy of x=9, 10 and 12. The present authors would propose that the primitive basic number of chromosome in the genus is 9, and thus both 10 and 12 are derived, for: (1) among the 9 species (including 1 subspecies) heretofore cytologically examined, x=9 occurring in 66.7%, x=10 occurring in 22.2%, while x=12 occurring only in 11.1%; (2) in generaclosely related to the genus under consideration, such as Panzeria, Galeobdolon and Lamium x=9 being the sole basic number. But L. japonicus exhibits a mixoploidy of 2n=20 (occurring at the rate of 53.30% of the total amount of cells examined), 2n=18 (30.70%), and 2n=16 (15.99%) in our work. (Table 1). Since the original basic number of chromosome of the genus is 9 as proposed above, 2n= 20 would be considered as a derived one and the occurrence of 2n=18 probably suggests an early evolutionary trend of 2n=18→20 of the pecies in question.

Key words: Leonurus, L.japonicus, Chromosome number, China