Fritillaria roylei

Fritillaria roylei Hook. is an important Himalayan medicinal endangered herb and commercially valued for its pharmaceutical significance. The bulb of this herb has been widely used for the treatment of bronchitis diseases and is also the important constituent of Astavarga (a group of eight medicinal herbs), Chyavanprash, and other Ayurvedic preparations in Indian system of medicine. The collection of bulbous herb from its natural habitat for medicinal purposes leads to its overexploitation and positioned under rare, endangered, and threatened species. Therefore, captive cultivation strategies, conservation (in situ and ex situ) measure, fast-track medicinal plant cultivation, and traditional knowledge validation are the need of the hour to fulfill the demand–supply gap in bioactive molecule production and also for extensive applications in traditional medicine system. Furthermore, technological interventions such as plant cell and tissue culture approaches, metabolic engineering, molecular taxonomy, molecular phylogeny, and omics sciences (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and phenomics) provide novel insights into metabolite upscaling vis-s-vis secondary metabolism biosynthetic pathways elucidation. Omics-based technologies provide molecular cues for the targeted metabolite enhancement via identification of key regulatory genes/proteins, metabolic fluxes, etc. This chapter compiles and highlights the significant scientific knowledge about species biology, origin and distribution, phytochemistry, ethanobotanical usage, in vitro morphogenesis, and omics advancement attempts in F. roylei.