micropropagation of medicinally important plant species of family asteraceae – a review

Asteraceae is a large and wide spread family of Angiosperms with about 23,000 species belonging to 1,620 genera. It is an economically important family with plants providing products like oil seeds, sweetening agents, coffee substitutes, tea etc. and also those having medicinal importance. Since, all the plants of this family are not cultivated; those present in wild habitats are facing threat due to the overexploitation for these byproducts. So there arises the need for conservation and one of the main methods is propagation through tissue culture.