Essay On Costus

INTRODUCTION

The genus Costus is of perennial tropical herbaceous flowering plants belongs to the family Costaceae. It is often characterized and distinguished from relatives such as Zingiber (true ginger) by their spiraling stems. The whole genus is thus often called spiral gingers. It is widely cultivated in south India and also grows wild in many places. It is a recently introduce by America as an herbal cure for diabetes; hence it is commonly known as ‘insulin plant.’

Costus pictus is also well known for its medicinal value mainly antiseptic, tonic, aphrodisiac, carminative, stomachic and vermifuge (Beena and Reddy, 2010). It is able to prevent the hair turning grey and its root is anodyne, antibacterial properties. It is widely used as

Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. Young leaves and nodal part of stem were taken as explants. Explants were surface sterilized in running tap water for 10 minute followed by sterilized distilled water for 5 minutes. Apart from this sterilizing agents such as 70% ethanol, Hgcl2 (0.3 %) were tried. The duration for surface sterilization was 5 minute by 0.3% mercuric chloride followed by three subsequent rinses with sterilized distilled water. All these explants were dissected into small pieces and inoculated in MS medium so that maximum part could be inserted in

pictus.

A: Induction of callus:

During present piece of work, explants viz. leaf and nodal segments were inoculated on MS medium. After 21 days callus was noticed at the cut end of the explants. The callus was white in color along with luster. It was turned green after 40 days. Maximum amount of callus formation was recorded on MS with 0.5mg/L IAA and 2.5mg/L BAP. Induction of callus was also noticed by taking IAA and KIN on MS but the rate of callus induction was less as compare to IAA and BAP.

Frequency of callus induction was maximum on half strength MS adding 1.0 mg/L of 2- 4-D in combination with 0.5 mg/L Kin first time reported by (Wani et al., 2014). During the present piece of work, highest frequency of callus formation was noticed on MS media. This might be due to inclusion of BAP 2.5 mg/L + IAA 0.5 mg/L by taking leaf disk as an explant. Similar kind of growth pattern of callus was recorded by Biradar et al., 2013.

Table.1. Induction of callus using different growth hormones on MS

Source of Explant Conc. of growth regulators (mg/L) % of Callus/Shoot