Articles
STUDIES ON DEVELOPMETAL PHYSIOLOGY OF MEDICINALLY IMPORTANT STEROID YIELDING PLANTS GROWING IN INDIA
Systematic research on collection, identification and botanical desciption of Indian medicinal plants took start during 17th and 18th century and British Botanists made significant contribution of two important medicinal plants – Cinchona (1866) and Ipecac (1973), both of which were brought into commercial production later on.
Now-a-days, India exports medicinal plants ingredients, amounting to about 40 crores of rupees annually.
Research on steriodal drugs plants in India date s back to 1920 at the School of Tropical Medicine, Calcutta under the guidance of Sir R.N. Chopra.
The researches continued in different areas which later on resulted in establishment of Dioscorea as an useful raw material for steriod drugs.
And during recent years major emphasis has been given on alternate sources of steriod-plants and experiments are at hand to develop agro-technology for cultivation of Costus speciosus as and alternate source of diosgenin.
Experiments are also going on for the development of Solanum khasianum and Solanum laciniatum as commercial crops for solasodine.
In India about 50 species of Dioscorea grow, mostly in the Himalayas; of which D. deltoidea and D. prazeri have been identified to contain diosgenin in amounts of commercial prospects.
Although India continues to import a number of steroids, sysmatic agrotechnical studies on Dioscoreas (6,12,17) Solanum (9) and Costus (19) have broadened the vistas of our being able to provide the pharmaceutical industry with the raw materials from our own farms.
India’s requirement of diosgenin at the end of 1985 will be about 240–250 tonnes; but at present India produces about 40 tonnes; thus leaving a wide gap for taking up commercial cultivation of steroid yielding plants on scientific order.
The present report deals with researches on certain aspects of developmental physiology of Dioscorea, Solanum and Costus that are being carried out in Covernment of West Bengal’s Medicinal Plants Research Unit in Darjeeling hills.
The researches have been aimed to increase the productivity of these steroid-yielding plants by improving on the existing methods of agro-technology.
In this report particular emphasis has been given to study the effects