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<i>Veratrum dahuricum</i> L. (Liliaceae), a monocotyledonous species distributed throughout the Changbai mountains of Northeast China, is pharmaceutically important, due to the capacity to produce the anticancer drug cyclopamine. An efficient transformation system of <i>Veratrum dahuricum</i> mediated with <i>Agrobacterium tumefaciens</i> is presented. Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium containing 8 mg/L picloram was used to induce embryogenic calli from immature embryos with 56% efficiency. <i>A. tumefaciens</i> LBA4404 carrying the bar gene driven by the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter was employed for embryogenic callus inoculation. <i>A. tumefaciens</i> cell density OD660 = 0.8 for inoculation, half an hour infection period, and three days of co-culture duration were found to be optimal for callus transformation. Phosphinothricin (PPT, 16 mg/L) was used as the selectable agent, and a transformation efficiency of 15% (transgenic plants/100 infected calli) was obtained. The transgenic nature of the regenerated plants was confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analysis, and expression of the bar gene was detected by RT-PCR and Quick PAT/bar strips. The steroid alkaloids cyclopamine, jervine, and veratramine were detected in transgenic plants, in non-transformed and control plants collected from natural sites. The transformation system constitutes a prerequisite for the production of the pharmaceutically important anticancer drug cyclopamine by metabolic engineering of <i>Veratrum</i>.