Abstract

Andrographis paniculatais a medicinal herb in the family Acanthaceae. Knowledge of Morpho-physiological diversity improves the efficiency of germplasm conservation and development. In order to evaluate Morpho-physiological diversity of 32 accessions of A. paniculatafrom different states of Malaysia, a Randomized Complete Block Design with 32 different accessions and three replicates was carried out. The results showed highly significant differences among the accessions in terms of most of the studied traits, while there were no significant differences among the accessions in terms of number of leaf and root fresh weight. Variance analysis based on seven states showed that there were no significant differences among the accessions in terms of most of the studied Morpho-physiological traits inside the each state. The highest total dry weight (TDW) (0.41 g) was belonged to accession No. 11340 from Kelantan, while the lowest TDW (0.12 g) was belonged to accession No. 11314 from Terengganu. The correlation between most of the studied traitswas high significant and positive. The cluster analysis based on the studied traits of 32 accessions produced three groups. The first group comprised of 5 accessions, the second group consisted of 10 accessions and the third group contains 17 accessions. Overall, the outcomes of the present study were indicated the presence of high genetic variability among the A. paniculataaccessions. Our findings suggest that the plants belong to different clusters can be used for hybridization to generate useful recombinants in the segregating generations, the genetics and breeding programs for improvement of A. paniculata.

Keywords

Andrographis paniculata, cluster analysis, genetic diversity, morphological trait, PCA analysis, anti-H1N1, anticancer, anti-hepatitis, anti-flammatory, anti-diarrhea, Pit mousse, pots containing soil, chlorophyll and protein content, physiological traits