Natural variation and correlation studies of morphological traits in a population of Curcuma amada Roxb

B.L. Rao, Vikas Mehra, M.K. Bhan and A.K. Dhar

Abstract

Curcuma amada Roxb., commonly known as mango ginger, is used in folklore medicine, culinary preparation, and for the production of oleoresin and essential oil. In the ayurvedic and unani systems of medicine, the rhizome (the underground part) is used as an antifungal, anti-inflammatory and antihyperglyceridemic agent. All the characters under study showed wide variations. The highest coefficients of variation (CV) were recorded for herb yield (69.0%), corm weight (58.8%) and finger weight (55.7%) while the lowest were for finger length (26.4%), leaf length (26.5%) and sheath length (26.8%). Finger weight had significant and positive correlations with all the other characters except sheath length. The highest correlation was recorded with corm weight (r = 0.772), while partial and multiple correlations suggest that corm weight, herb yield and finger length are important components for increasing finger weight. Essential oil after Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), Gas Liquid Chromatography (GLC) and 1HNMR analyses showed β-myrcene to be the major compound with a mean value of 39.68 ± 8.03.

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