Genus Kaempferia comprises about 124 species distributed in Southeast
Asia and is well known for it's diverse medicinal, nutritional and industrial values. The
plants of the genus are rhizomatous, perennial, and oil-yielding plants; some are also
used as spices. The essential oil obtained from the plants has a considerable market
value worldwide. The rhizomes of these plants were used in traditional medicine due to
the presence of diverse bioactive compounds and used to treat urinary tract infections,
fever, cough, hypertension, metabolic disorder, asthma, rheumatism, epilepsy, skin
diseases, etc. Seed dormancy, seasonal outgrowth and seed made through crosspollination were found to be non-viable, which are the prime limitations of ex situ
conservation regarding this genus. To overcome this type of problem, in vitro tissue
culture is the way to get the plants available over the year without any limitations. This
chapter is based mainly on exploring those bioactive compounds containing species of
the genus Kaempferia, and obtaining an alternative resource of phyto-compounds for
use in pharmaceuticals and conserving them through an artificial way to get them
throughout the year without exploiting the area and genotypic alteration.
Keywords: Conservation, Kaempferia, Micropropagation, Phyto-compounds, Zingiberaceae.
