MORPHOLOGICAL AND MICROSCOPIC ANALYSIS OF FIVE CURCUMA SPECIES GROWN IN SRI LANKA USING MULTIVARIATE TEST

Curcuma is an important genus used in Traditional Medicine in the world. Due to similar morphological characters and same Sinhalese vernacular names of Curcuma species, adulteration or substitution takes place. The current study was conducted to understand the similarities in morphological and microscopic characters by analyzing data using multivariate test on five species available in Sri Lanka; C. albiflora, C. aromatic, C. longa, C. oligantha, and C. zedoaria. Whole plants of Curcuma species were collected in 2016, from wet and dry zones of Sri Lanka. Voucher specimens of the plants were authenticated from National Herbarium, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Morphological characters of five Curcuma species and microscopic characters of five Curcuma species using 5 observations of each plant were analyzed. An experiment was conducted as per WHO guidelines and other published data. Statistical tests were performed using Minitab 17. Multivariate test was used to determine the complex relationship among variables by simple correspondence analysis. Analyses examined the relationships between the 25 observations and the associations between variables in two dimensions and similar morphological and microscopic observations were identified from their positions. Statistical analysis of the current study showed differentiation by morphological and microscopic characters of Curcuma species. Morphologically C. zedoaria and C. longa are similar. Microscopically, C. zedoaria and C. albiflora showed more similarity, In contrast, C. aromatica and C. longa clustered as another group. Therefore, this analysis can be used to identify commercial samples of Curcuma species more effectively.