LEMON GRASS

 

          Lemongrass (Cymbopogan flexuosus.) is the source of `Iemongrass oil' obtained from the leaves and shoot of the plant. 

Origin, distribution and production India.  

 

Description of the plant

          C.flexuosus var. flexuosus grows to height of about 3 m. The leaves of the plant are linear, lanceolate, 125 cm long and 1.7 cm broad. Panicles are very large, drooping lax, greyish or greyish green, rarely have a purple tinge, with the receme pairs in dense masses, spreading, 100-135 cm tall, slightly hairy, lower glumes of the sessile spikeletes 3-4, rarely 4-5 mm long, 1 mm wide, having 1-3 definite or obscure introcrainal nerves, shallowly concave with one or two depressions.

Sugandhi (OD-19) It is released from the Aromatic and Medicinal Plants Research Station, Odakkali,

Pragathi It is a clonal selection from OD-19 evolved at the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow.

Praman Evolved through clonal selection from C.pendulus at the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow. It is a tetraploid plant with profuse tillering habit.

RRL-16 It is evolved from C.pendulus and released for cultivation from Regional Research Laboratory, Jammu as Jammu Lemongrass        

CKP-25 It is a inter specific hybrid between C.khasianus and C.pendulus developed by Regional Research Laboratory, Jammu.

          In addition to the above `OD-408' from Aromatic and Medicinal Plants Research Station, Odakkali, RRL-39 from Regional Research Laboratory, Jammu and `Kaveri' and `Krishna' from Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Regional Station, Bangalore have been recently released as high yielding varieties for cultivation.