Studies on similarity coefficient and enumeration of common endophytic fungi of young, mature, yellow, dry and infected leaf samples of five medicinal plants, viz., Acalypha indica, Andrographis paniculata, Cucumis maderaspatnus, Pongamia pinnata and Zizyphus mauritiana was carried out by moist chamber method in the Department of Botany, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Post Graduate Studies (Autonomous), Pondicherry, India. Altogether 40 endophytic fungi were isolated under 26 genera from various leaf samples of five medicinal plants. Of which, 12 species of 10 genera were isolated from Acalypha indica,12 species under 11 genera from Andrographis paniculata, 13 species of 10 genera from Cucumis maderaspatanus, 14 species of 12 genera from Pongamia pinnata and 14 species of 10 genera from Zizyphus mauritiana. Similarity coefficient of endophytic fungi isolated from medicinal plants showed that Andrographis paniculata and Cucumis maderaspatnus were more similar (38.5%) in the distribution of endophytic fungi followed by Acalypha indica and Pongamia pinnata (37.03%). The least number of similarity coefficients was found between Pongamia pinnata and Zizhyphus mauritiana (7.69%) followed by Acalypha indica and Zizhyphus mauritiana (8.0%). Common trend of fungal endophytes was not found among different leaves of the medicinal plants but few fungi showed their common occurrence among the medicinal plants. Pongamia pinnata and Zizyphus mauritiana were found to harbor maximum fungi in comparison to other plants. More endophytic fungi were recorded from young leaves of A. Paniculata and Z. maurtiana but least number were from C. maderaspatnus and Pongamia pinnata. Moreover, during the enumeration of endophytic fungi from leaf samples of medicinal plants, infected leaves were more prone to harbor more endophytes than dry, yellow and mature leaves of the plants.
