PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF GLORIOSA SUPERBA

Gloriosa superba L. is an important medicinal plant belongs to the family Colchicaceae and placed in moncots. It is one of the important medicinal plant now in endangered list. It is a semi woody herbaceous climber reaching just about 5mts in height: stem annual, glabrous and sparsely branched; tuber perennial, horizontal, abruptly bent in a V or L shape, roots fibrous. Colchicine one of alkaloid extracted from tubers and seeds. Colchicine which is useful in to stop the mitotic division, with this we can convert the diploid plants into tetraploid plants and by crossing tetraploid plants with diploid plants we can obtain triploids. Triploid plants are very much useful in horticulture crops. Polyploids are very much useful in flower industry. Colchcine also useful in karyotypic studies in plants, animals and to count the chromosome number and also to study the trisomics or monosomics in humans. In this text book explained about plant tissue culture, micro propagation and seed germination methods. Phytochemical analysis of tubers carried with different methods and genetic variation analyzed with RAPD.