Plant Tissue Cult. 6(1) : 63-65, 1996

Short Communications

Plant Regeneration of Rauvolfia serpentina by Organogenesis from Callus Cultures.

K. P. Sarker, R. isalm, A. Islam¹, A. Hoque and O. I. Joarder

Department of Botany, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi 6205, Bangladesh

Key words: Medicinal plant, micropropagation, Tissue culture

Abastract

Explants of an alkaloid producing plant, cultured in vitro, has been found to retain the capacity to synthesise alkaloids identical to that in the intact plant. Sometimes, high yield of secondary metabolites is observed in tissue grown as cullas masses produced during differentiation (Benavides and Caso 1993). Rauvolfia serpentina (Apocynaceae) has been a valuable source of the alkaloid reserpine. Propagation of Rauvolfia serpentina through tissue culture has been described but most them have focused on micropropagation by means of stimulating axillary shoot growth (Mathur et al. 1987, 1993; Roy et al. 1994). Here we report induction of callus and plant regeneration from callus cultures in R. serpentina.

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