Micropropagation of the Indian Birthwort Arsitolochia indica L.

Aristolochia indica L. is a medicinal woody perennial climber plant of immense pharmaceutical value. The species is endangered with possible extinction due to its indiscriminate harvesting as raw material for pharmaceutical industry, to manufacture drugs against cholera, inflammation, biliousness, dry cough and snake bite. A rigorous attempt has been made for development of in vitro propagation procedure for this species, involving four steps, namely: culture establishment, shoot multiplication, rooting and hardening. Aseptic cultures were established by growing nodal segments (1 to 1.5 cm) as explants on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium containing 5.0 µM N6-Benzyladenine (BA). Five nutrient media, MS, Woody Plant Medium (WPM), Gamborg Medium (B5), Nitsch and Nitsch Medium (NN), and Schenk and Hildebrandt Medium (SH) supplemented with different cytokinins and auxins at a concentration of 10.0 µM were used in this study. Ads at 10.0 µM proved optimum for in vitro shoot multiplication. The treatment resulted in 100% shoot number per explant at 15 days and 61.9% at 30 days on MS medium, 65.2% node number per shoot at 15 days and 196.2% at 30 days on WPM medium and 147.5 and 366.6% node number per explant at 30 days after inoculation on MS medium. The in vitro multiplied shoots were used for rooting experiment. Five nutrient media (MS, WPM, B5, NN and SH) and three auxin sources 10.0 µM each (IBA, IAA and NAA). SH medium with 10.0 µM NAA induced 327.8% rooting at 21days and 654.8% at 28 days and root number per explant 4300% at 21 and 394% at 28 day after inoculation. The in vitro propagated hardened plants exhibited excellent growth on transfer to natural condition.