Studies in Phellinus S L with special reference to those occurring on Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam

Abstract

Phansomba is a medicinal mushroom used to cure ailments like teeth, tongue, throat related ailments, diarrhea and to stop excessive salivation in case of children. Its medicinal value is known in the pockets of Western Ghats of Maharashtra especially, the Konkan region. The local name “Phansomba” given to the medicine means “A mango like structure (mushroom) found on Artocarpus heterophyllus trees (Jack fruit tree, Vernacular name: Phanas). The literature survey revealed that, regionally traded Phansomba samples mainly comprised of species belonging to genus Phellinus alongwith scanty adulteration of Ganoderma spp. A sytematic study was necessary to authenticate Phansomba as Phellinus, which was achieved by collecting Phellinus spp. occurring on Artocarpus heterophyllus through Konkan region of the Western Ghats of Maharashtra. Species identification of all the samples collected were undertaken using traditional taxonomic method. Many problems were encountered in traditional taxonomic identification of the samples due to vast number of valid species (174). A method was therefore developed for idetifying Phellinus spp. which is based on Digital Datamatrix (Synoptic key) generated over chosen 95 taxonomic characters. The stated method is a numerical taxonomic approach towards the identification of Phellinus using a customized self-developed software code denoted as “Phellinus Identifying Computer Code”. Identification of Phellinus samples, was done on the basis of results given by the software code. The datamatrix generated for 200 species of Phellinus was subjected to Parsimonial cluster analysis, which yielded segregation of species into 07 clusters based on their taxonomic similarities. Total 27 cultures of Phellinus spp. were isolated in axenic cultures, out of which, 20 were from Artocarpus heterophyllus and 07 from other angiospermic trees. All cultures were characterised based on chosen 16 characters. The resulting datamatix, when subjected to Parsimonial cluster analysis revealed the inadequacy of generated data to support the clustering of those species based on taxonomic datamatrix. Considered the neutraceutical value of Phellinus, taking steps towards its commercial production was a necessity. To achieve this objective, screening of cultures was done for the selection of best isolate.