Summary. Bacopa monnieri (L.) Pennell, is a well recognized medicinal herb having memory boosting property. Eleven accessions were
collected from various parts of Kerala State, India and variation in thirty characters including twelve qualitative and eighteen quantitative
traits were recorded. One way ANOVA on quantitative traits showed significant variations among accessions. The dendrogram generated
on the basis of metric traits revealed accession BM 9 from Kozhikkode as the outlier. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed
to identify the significant characters to delimit the taxa and it revealed that quantitative characters like plant length, number of nodes per
plant, inter nodal length, leaf length, pedicel length and flower length were the most significant ones. Biochemical characters including total
saponin and bacoside A content were also found as the highly loaded characters. The variability records in B. monnieri can be implied to
screen superior germplasm on the basis of desirable quality traits such as biomass, saponin and bacoside content.
Industrial relevance. In the traditional, Indian system of medicine, several herbs have been used in the formulation of brain or nerve tonics.
Bacopa monnieri is the prime species for this purpose. The plant is having a wide range of distribution pattern ranging from lower mild salt
affected coastal belt to higher elevation in Kerala state. The plant is now cultivated as valuable raw drug resource in the state. However, the
price of the raw drug is determined on the basis of quality, especially on the basis of its active principle. In the present report,
morphological and biochemical traits (total saponin and bacoside A) including quality parameters of the raw drug excisable from B.
monnieri were analyzed for accessions from different agro climatic regions in the state which can be used as a model for the screening of
superior accessions, thus make organised cultivation of B. monnieri a profitable venture.
Keywords. Bacopa monnieri; brahmi; medicinal plant; germplasm; variability; multivariate analyses