Original Articles
B. K. Nayak1, Suchitra N.1 and
Abstract
A comparative study of isolation and enumeration of endophytic fungi from young, mature, yellow, dry and infected leaf samples of five medicinal plants, viz., Andrographis paniculata, Acalypha indica, Pongamia pinnata, Cucumis maderaspatnus and Zizyphus mauritiana was carried out by agar plate methods in the Microbiology Laboratory, Department of Botany, K. M. Centre for P. G. Studies (Autonomous), Pondicherry, India. A number of fungi isolated from the medicinal plants were found common to each other. Similarity coefficient of endophytic fungi isolated by Agar plates showed that Andrographis paniculata and Acalypha indica were more similar (41.37%) in the distribution of endophytic fungi followed by Zizhyphus mauritiana and Andrographis paniculata (35.71%). The least number of similarity coefficient was found between Acalypha indica and Zizhyphus mauritiana (7.40%). Common number of species and similarity coefficient were (35.71%) found within the medicinal plants of Andrographis and Zizyphus mauritiana. No common trend of fungal endophytes found among different leaves of the medicinal plants. Maximum endophytes were isolated from A. Paniculata and least number from Zizyphus mauritiana. More endophytic fungi were recorded from young leaves of A. Paniculata but least number were from A. indica and Z. maurtiana, likewise more numbers were isolated from dry and infected leaves of A. Indica and the least were found in C. maderaspatnus than other leaves of medicinal plants. During the enumeration of endophytic fungi isolated from different leaf samples of five medicinal plants, Andrographis paniculata and Pongamia pinnata were found to harbor maximum fungi in comparison to other plants. Infected leaves were more prone to accumulate endophytes and it was followed by dry, yellow and mature leaves of the plants.