Micropropagation and Arbuscular Mycorrhizae Assisted Growth in Phlomis cashmeriana Royle ex Benth., an endemic medicinal herb of Kashmir Himalaya

ABSTRACT Phlomis cashmeriana (Lamiaceae) is an ornamental cum medicinal perennial herb endemic to Kashmir Himalaya. Two arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal inocula on post-transplanting performance of ‘in vitro’-raised P. cashmeriana plantlets were tested. The two AM fungal inocula consisted of two mono-specific cultures of Funneliformis geosporus and Acaulospora mellea applied in combination and one crude consortium of AM fungal spores isolated from rhizosphere soil of P. cashmeriana growing in natural habitat. Complete plantlets of P. cashmeriana were raised by direct and indirect organogenesis from leaf and node explants on Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with various cytokinins and auxins. In vitro-raised plantlets responded to both the mycorrhizal treatments in a significantly different way. The inoculated plantlets fared significantly better than the un-inoculated ones in terms of the plant height, number of shoots etc. Among the two inocula tested, plantlets inoculated with the mixed consortium of AM fungi consistently performed better in terms of survival rate of plantlets (100%) and other parameters viz., plant height, number of shoots and roots per plant, number of leaves per plant, leaf area and biomass production. The study suggests the use of mixed consortium of AM fungi over mono-specific cultures for the sustainable cultivation and conservation of in vitro-raised P. cashmeriana – a medicinally important endemic plant species of Kashmir Himalaya. Therefore, this is easy to use AMF and also the present research can be extended to other such medicinally important plant species which require conservation and sustainable development.