Micropropagation and In Vitro Studies in Hedychium J. Koenig (Zingiberaceae)

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Hedychium, a tropical to subtropical Asian genus with about 100 species, has various medicinal and horticultural uses. There is a high rate of exploitation and disappearance of its species from natural habitats. Additionally, habitat loss and natural calamities should speed up the erosion of this plant species. Micropropagation is considered a multiplication and conservation strategy for medicinal plants. Micropropagation in Hedychium is very scanty, and protocols have been developed only for less than 20 species so far. Hedychium coronarium and H. spicatum are wellstudied species in vitro among the micropropagated species. It is interesting that micropropagations through protocorm-like bodies were achieved in H. coronarium. The selection of explants and their axenic development in vitro is the major hurdle in micropropagation. Cotyledonary nodes, shoot tip or shoot tip meristems from axenically germinated seeds, rhizome buds, rhizome meristem, and zygotic embryos were the explants commonly used for the micropropagation of Hedychium. Various in vitro methods such as somatic embryogenesis, direct organogenesis and indirect organogenesis, multiplication through microrhizome induction, and propagation through protocorm-like bodies were frequently tried for the successful micropropagation of this genus.