Novel study on in vitro culture of Rheum spiciforme Royle: An endangered medicinal plant of Gurez valley

Rheum spiciforme (polygonaceae) is one of most known medicinal plant and is found on high altitudes of Gurez valley (3000m to 5000m). It is of high demand due to its medicinal value and has become endangered due over exploitation. Rheum spiciforme being a medicinal plant of immense importance with large pharmacological applications and it has been used as an ingredient of many herbal formulations, which are used for the cure of various ailments, in particular the regulation of blood pressure, fatty liver, hepatitis, fever and cancer. Tissue culture protocol was developed as a mode of the conservation. The phytohormones used for micropropagation were 6-benzyl amino purine, Kinetin, Indole - 3 acetic acid, Napthalene Acetic Acid , Indole 3-butyric acid, 2,4 –dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, Zeatin, Thidiazuron (BAP, Kn, IAA,NAA,IBA,2,4-D, Z,IAA and TDZ) which showed good results. Different parts (seeds, leaves, shoots and rhizomes) of Rheum spiciforme were used for invitro purposes. The complete germination and plantlet formation was obtained from seeds as explants (shooting/rooting) when cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with different concentrations and combination of auxins and cytokinins.