Diversity in a Widely Distributed Dioecious Medicinal Plant, Tinospora cordifolia (Willd.) Miers. ex. Hook F. and Thomas

The nature and extent of diversity in Tinospora cordifolia, a dioecious climber, widely distributed in India, and one of the most important medicinal plants has remained underexplored. The present study reveals wide range of tinosporaside content (0.016–4.523 mg/g), berberine content (0.27–76.9 mg/g) and jaccard distances (0.0341–0.559). The neighbour joining tree, structure simulation and principal coordinate analysis resolved all the accessions into six sub-clusters, four of which were congruent in the analyses. Sub-cluster I uniquely included all male accessions, with above average leaf areas and below average tinosporaside contents with hairy and fibrous leaves. Further, analysis of molecular variance considering three populations showed that maximum variance (87%) was within the population. The result of this preliminary study revealed genetic diversity, population structure in T. cordifolia.