This is quite an innovative approach to increasing the flavonoids, total phenolic components and antioxidant activities of a regionally important food plant. However, the manuscript represents only preliminary experiments. Even the UV radiation treatment lasting 5 minutes appeared to have a severe effect on the growth of the plants, with 30% of the leaves being lost. A lower intensity of radiation for longer times needs to be trialled. It is not clear how well developed the shoots were that were exposed to the UV radiation, and this needs to be documented more clearly. Inclusion of a "natural" group is useful, but the results from this should be included in a separate table unless this group was used to tissue culture from. This is not clear. This "natural" group needs to be fully described in terms of age, how it is grown etc. The author describes the preparation of dried "tea" from the shoots. Neither of these descriptions is clear, but do indicate an end-use
for this research. However, at this stage of the research, I think it would be better to mention teas only in the Introduction and Discussion and to focus on producing an aqueous extract from fresh shoots and from freeze dried shoots. Chromatographic analysis of the flavonoids and other phenolic components would strengthen the manuscript. Furthermore, given this plant can contain significant concentrations of the alkaloid papaverine, this should also be analysed for.