868 rJuly EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT COLLECTIONS OF HYPERICUM PERFORATUM L. IN HIMACHAL PRADESH FOR BIOMASS YIELD AND HYPERICIN CONTENT JOGINDER SINGH, A. RAJASEKARAN, R. RAINA* AND R. RANA* Non-Wood Forest Products Division, Himalayan Forest Research Institute, Conifer Campus, Panthaghati, Shim,la (H.P) Introduction Hypericum peljortaum L. (Family: Hypericaceae), cummonly known as St. John's Wort in English and 'Basant' in Hindi is an important medicinal plant valued for its antidepressant activity. The plant contains many biologically active compounds including rutin, pectin, choline, sitosterol, hypericin and pseudo-hypericin (Greeson et al., 2001). The species is indigenous to Europe, West Asia, North Africaand Western United States. However, it has been naturalized in North America, Australia, New Zealand and other temperate regions around the world (CampbE:,1 and Delfosse, 1984). In India, it grows in the temperate regions of the Himalayas and also in Himachal Pradesh in shady and damp forests of Shimla, Kullu and Bharmour between 3000 and 8000 ft, in sporadic patches (Collett, 1971). Hypericum perforatum is an herbaceous perennial plant. The leaves of the plants are simple. The flowers are yellow and appear in terminal corymbs from April to October. Flowers and leaves of H. perforatum are characterized by the presence of dark coloured glands. These glands are present on the lamina margin as well as on the petal margins, the number being more in the latter. The dark-coloured glands present on the petals, leaves and anthers of H. perforatum are the accumulation sites of Hypericin (Raina, et al., 2005). The existing information on Indian population of the. species is meager especially on biomass yield and hypericin content <Singh et al., 2008). Further, many areas in Himachal Pradesh are climatically suitable for its commercial cultivation. Hence the present study was conducted to evaluate the different collections of Hperforatum for biomass yield and hypericin content so that the high quality planting material could be uSf'd for commercial cultivation. Material and Methods Mature seeds of H.perforatum from seven locations viz Hyp-I (Jubbal, 1890m), Hyp-II (Sanava, 2240m), Hyp-III (Tikana, 2180m), Hyp-IV (Chhajpur, 2150m), Hyp-V (Dochidhar, 1790m), Hyp-VI (Koftudhar, 2400m) and Hyp-VII (Sansog, 2250m) of. Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh were collected in September 2001. The seeds were sown in second week of March at research farm Shilly, Dr YS. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry Solan, Himachal Pradesh. The experiment was conducted following Randomized Block Design with four replications for estimation of biomass yield and hypericin content. The data on dry weight, height, number of branches and stem/leafratio were taken on four plants per replication. The fresh and dry weight was 'College of Forestry. DrYS. Parmar Univel sity of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni. Solan ,Himachal Pradesh,