In vitro Studies on Centella asiatica (L.) Urban, An Ayurvedic Medicinal Herb

The book "In vitro Studies on Centella asiatica (L.) Urban, An Ayurvedic Medicinal Herb" is the Ph. D Thesis/Dissertation... Centella asiatica (L.) Urban, a medicinal herb, is a member of the family Apiaceae. The genus consists of 33 species, and distributed in tropical and sub tropical regions such as India, China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Australia and Southern and Central Africa. In English: Indian penny wort; Hindi: Brahmamanduki; Tamil: Vallarai; Telugu: Saraswataku; Malayalam: Muttil; Kannadam: Vondelaga; Sanskrit: Mandukaparni. It is a prostrate, faintly aromatic, stoloniferous perennial herb, grows up to 2 m long, commonly found as a weed in crop fields and other waste places throughout India upto an altitude of 2,000 ft. The stem is glabrous, pink and striated, rooting is at the nodes; leaves are fleshy, orbicular-reniform, crenate-dentate, base cordate and often lobed, long petioled, smooth on the upper surface and sparsely hairy on the lower; flowers are red, pink or white in fascicled umbels and fruits are oblong, dull brown, laterally compressed, pericarp hard and thickened woody, white. Natural stands of C.asiatica are fast disappearing and threatened with extinction due to discriminative collection and over exploitation for medicinal and commercial purposes and to meet the requirement of the pharmaceutical industry. Ex situ conservation can only help in sustainable use of biological resource with net species improvement.