MICROPROPAGATION OF CRYPTANTHUS WITH LEAF EXPLANTS WITH ATTACHED INTERCALARY MERISTEMS EXCISED FROM GREENHOUSE STOCK PLANTS

By using the leaves with attached intercalary meristems from greenhous e grown stock plants, five cultivars of Cryptanthus were cultured on m odified MS media with 4.5 mu M NAA and IBA and 3 mu M BA to induce adv entitious shoot formation from callus tissue. Contamination was 17-21% for explants taken from stock plants which were sprayed weekly with A gribrom and 27-75% for those taken from stock plants which were not tr eated. More than 99% true to type plantlets were obtained from non-chi meric plants. Green and albino plantlets were obtained from chimeric p lants. The chimeric C. 'Coster's Favorite' DeCoster also produced a fe w chimeric plantlets with intermarginal pink stripes in addition to th e green and albino plantlets. Most of the non-chimeric plants took a s horter time to produce plantlets of transplantable size (8-12 mm) than the chimeric ones. Except for albino plantlets, survival rate of plan tlets exceeded 95%. A minimum average of 500 rooted plantlets can be o btained in a year from a single well-callused leaf explant. The protoc ol in this report should speed up the mass production and introduction of desirable new cultivars and hybrids of non-chimeric Cryptanthus. ( C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.