ASSESSING THE MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS FOR TAXONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE AMONG INTRASPECIFIC VARIATIONS OF CATHARANTHUS ROSEUS (original) (raw)

Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don, which is an important alkaloid-yielding medicinal and ornamental plant belonging to family Apocynaceae. It is an evergreen shrub and found to grow in the world in many places around the country. The genus Catharanthus comprises 8 species, out of which seven species are endemic to Madagascar namely C. roseus, C. coriaceus, C. lanceus, C. longifolius, C. ovalis, C. scitulus and C. trichophyllus where as one is confined to India and Sri Lanka that is C. pusillus. The genus Catharanthus is well reported for producing biologically active terpenoid indole alkaloids (TIAs) with over 130 compounds isolated and identified. Alkaloids of this plant have a great medicinal importance to treat diabetes, malaria, menorrhagia, Hodgkin's disease, circulatory ailments, cancer etc. C. roseus has a high salt tolerance, up to 2000 ppm. Several scores of ornamental cultivars of C. roseus bred for differing shoot habit, time of blooming, petal coloration and suitability for cultivation in homes and gardens are in vogue worldwide. Though considerable variations can be observed in gardens around the world, attempts have not been made so far to study the morphological relations among different species of Catharanthus. In view of these facts the study was conducted for the identification of plant by doing assessment of morphological relationship between two selected species of Catharanthus using leaf – length, breath, seed-colour, texture, stem-colour, texture, bark, etc., may be useful to legitimatize conservancy of commercially important species. Thus a complementary method based on plant morphology for the identification of Catharanthus species of the region is essential and is provided. In this context, this work can lead to development of an efficient protocol to study the morphological relationship between two selected species of Catharanthus using morphological characters.