MICROPROPAGATION AND IN-VITRO STORAGE OF CENTAURIUM-RIGUALII ESTEVE (GENTIANACEAE)

Centaurium rigualii Esteve, an endangered plant species from southeast ern Spain with potentially useful secondary products, was successfully micropropagated from shoot tips using MS supplemented with 0.44 mu M 6-benzylaminopurine (BA) and 0.05 mu M 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) at the proliferation step, and MS medium alone or with varying concent rations of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) at the rooting step. No inciden ce of somaclonal variation was detected among randomly chosen shoots f rom ten subclonal lines in eight isozyme systems studied and in chromo some counts. However, this does not preclude the existence of somaclon al variation at other levels of the genome. A 90% survival rate was ob tained when shoots were stored for three years in MS medium supplement ed with 4.92 mu M IBA at 5 degrees C and with a 16-h photoperiod.