Flowers of Nymphaea stellata Willd. (Nymphaeaceae) are used in the Indian traditional system of medicine to treat diabetes mellitus but have not been scientifically investigated. Hence, the current study was aimed to evaluate the hypoglycemic and antihyperglycemic effect on normal and alloxan-induced diabetic rats. Hydroethanol extract (HEE) of Nymphaea stellata at an oral dose of 200, 300, and 400 mg/kg was given, and blood glucose level (BGL) on normoglycemic and, diabetic rats and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) were evaluated. HEE of the flowers did not show significant reduction on BGL in normoglycemic rats but significantly (p < 0.001) reduced the BGL in hyperglycemic animals by improving OGTT. These results clearly show that flowers of N. stellata do not have hypoglycemic activity in normoglycemic rats but have an antihyperglycemic activity in alloxan-induced diabetic rats.

Thirty one accessions of brinjal were assessed for heritability and genetic divergence for fourteen characters. Highly significant differences were observed among the accessions High phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for number of leaves per plant, leaf area index, number of fruits per plant, average fruit length, average fruit diameter, fruit yield per plant, fruit yield per plot, fruit yield per hectare. Almost all the characters exhibited high heritability except for plant height (51%) and moderate to low heritability was recorded for average fruit weight (24%). Highest genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for almost all the characters except for days to first flowering, days to first picking, plant height and average fruit weight recorded moderate to low genetic advance as per cent of mean. These thirty one accessions of brinjal were assessed for genetic diversity by adopting Mahalanobis (D 2 ) statistics considering fourteen characters were grouped into 6 clusters. Multivariate analyses revealed maximum divergence among the clusters signifying their role in exploitation of heterosis. key words: Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.), heritability, genetic divergence INTRODUCTION

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