Arnica Montana L. as a Medicinal Crop Species

The increased demands on the market for pharmaceutical plants from the wild put a high pressure for their future conservation and therefore they need protection. Thus, species such as Arnica montana L well known for their medicinal effects in a range of human diseases became for long time a target for being collected from the wild. Still, since 1977 the species is declared as nature monument and later on it is protected under the current legislative framework for nature protection. However the transfer of the plant into the crop filed my further support the access to this genetic resource without any harm on the wild species. The scope of this article is to analyse if Arnica montana may change the profile of volatile oil if it is transferred from the wild into the crop field. Based on morphometry and biochemical analysis it can be considered that arnica may become a medicinal crop plant as no changes in their volatile oil composition was observed.