XVI International Botanical Congess

Medicinal herbs are the most important sources of medicines and many other pharmaceutical products, comprising about 25% of prescribed drugs. However, many of these plants when propagated by conventional methods take a long time for multiplication. They either have a low rate of fruit set, or have a poor seed germination and sometimes the clonal uniformity cannot be maintained through seed. Most of all, those endangered medicinal herb germplasms need to be conserved. The rapid multiplication of medicinal herbs by tissue culture techniques can help to solve these problems. This paper describes the methods that we have established for the mass propagation of important medicinal herbs, Anoectochilus formosanus and Angelica sinensis and the production of useful compounds of the Angelica dahurica, Dioscorea doryophora, Bupheurum falcatum, Bupleurum marginatum and Angelica sinensis by callus and cell suspension culture.