Aloe vera (Linn.), an important medicinal plant is cultivated throughout the world. Due to absence of sexual reproduction it lacks genetic variation generated through genetic recombination. The present study was aimed to compare the morphological and biochemical characters of tissue culture derived and field grown clones of two different accessions of Aloe vera with a view to exploit somaclonal variations for plant improvement. The stem disc explants obtained from two morphologically distinct accessions of Aloe vera (HPM1 and PBL3) were cultured on MS medium supplemented with 2, 4 - D (1.0 mg/l) and Kinetin (0.2 mg/l). The callii obtained were sub-cultured on shoot proliferation medium and then on rooting medium. Assessments were made on nearly one year old plants. Plants regenerated by tissue culture techniques exhibited various morphological and biochemical variations. Comparison of somaclones with the parental clones showed variation in size of plants, size of leaves, spines, etc. The callus regenerated plants of HPM1 were bigger in size than the parental clones and showed marginal increase in the amount of carbohydrate, protein, chlorophyll and phenol contents over the control plants. There was decrease in aloin content and juice quantity but increase in gel content in the somaclones. The tissue culture raised plants of PBL3 were smaller in size and exhibited decreased amount of carbohydrate, protein, chlorophyll, aloin, juice and gel contents than the parental clones but have increased amount of phenols. Keywords: Aloe
