Rapid and stable propagation of Globba marantina L., an important medicinal plant of family Zingiberaceae.

Globba marantina L is an important Indian medicinal herb of family Zingiberaceae rarely distributed commonly known as "dancing ginger girl". This medicinal tuberous plant has some active constituents used to cure earache and also used as eye drop to cure conjuctivitis. An in vitro conservation and regeneration system was developed for conservation of this rare traditional medicinal plant species. The present slow growth protocol was achieved for long term conservation using both solid and liquid Murashige and Skoog (MS) media with different carbon sources and growth hormones. Half- MS supplemented with Kinetin (3mg/l) and Naphthalene acetic acid (0.5mg/l) was found to be optimum with sucrose (10g/l) and mannitol (10g/l). Subculture duration could be significantly enhanced and the regenerated plants were successfully conserved for a maximum of 220 days. Plants regenerated from conserved cultures were successfully established in soil. On the basis of twelve inter simple sequence repeat primers (ISSR) and morphological characteristic analysis from field up to two generations, no significant variation was observed between the control and in vitro regenerated plants. The present protocol for the first time reports mass propagation and genetic stability of G. marantina which could be used for future commercial exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]