A PROTOCOL FOR HIGH FREQUENCY PLANT REGENERATION THROUGH SOMATIC EMBRYOGENESIS IN SWERTIA CHIRATA BUCH.-HAM. EX. C.B. CLARKE

Abstract

Plants which provide man with food, fodder, medicine, shelter are rapidly eroding mainly due to growing population and various development activities. Conserving valuable genetic resources has become the need of the hour. Like other countries, India too is deeply committed to conservation of its natural resources. Wild plants have a more important role in medicine and food than cultivated species. These plants are at the same time hardy and resistant. Swertia chirata (Buch.-Ham. ex C.B. Clarke) belongs to family Gentiaceae is an erect annual herb found in the temperate Himalayas at an altitude of 1,200-3,000 m from Kashmir to Bhutan and in the Khasi hills in Meghalaya at 1,200-1,500 m. It is a medicinally important plant. The whole plant is medicinal but the root is the most powerful part of the medicinal use. The drug (chiretta), obtained from the dried plant. The stems form the major portion of the drug as the roots are very small in size 5-10 cm long. It is one of the 32 plant species identified as priority species for cultivation and conservation by the National Medicinal Plant Board (NMPB), India. S. chirata found in the wild and posses a number of medicinal values. It is used in diuretic, dyspepsia, laxative, fever and anaemia etc. This plant is endangered due to over exploitation of forest and destruction of habitats. A programme was therefore, undertaken at the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, India to develop a protocol for in vitro plant regeneration. It is reported first time the success of high frequency somatic embryo development and plantlet formation of S. chirata through embryogenic callus induced from immature seeds.