PURPOSE:To separate and collect an alkylhydroquinone-beta-D-glucoside useful as a beautifying and whitening agent, by adding an alkylhydroquinone to a tissual culture medium of a plant callus or tumorous tissue and carrying out cultivation. CONSTITUTION:Cell groups or pieces of tissues of seedling root, hypocotyl, cotyledon, stem, flower, leaf, etc., of a plant, e.g. Catharanthis roseus L., etc., as a starting material are sterilized and cultivated according to an ordinary method to induce a callus. The formation of the callus is carried out using a solid culture medium containing agar, e.g. Murashige-Skoog culture medium, White culture medium, etc., and the induced callus is then subcultured in a liquid culture medium without adding agar by shaking culture. The subculture is carried out and an alkylhydroquinone is added to the culture medium to continue culture. After several days, the resultant culture is recovered to obtain the aimed alkylhydroquinone-beta-D-glucoside expressed by the formula from the culture by a well-known method.
