Abstract:
Musella lasiocarpa (Musaceae) is an ornamental annually producing many viable seeds, but seldom
recruited by seeds in the wild. One mature Musella seed has a small mushroom-shaped embryo without
discernible organ differentiation. Therefore, freshly-harvested mature seeds are dormant. When the seeds
gradually finished differentiation during warm stratification at 23°C, they germinated to 82%. Besides,
extracted embryos from fresh seeds did not germinate on the basal medium of Murshige and Skoog medium
(MS) supplemented with 3% sucrose and 0.8% agar, but they were induced to form calli and root by media. The
optimum medium for inducing calli was MS + 1.0 mg/L 6-BA + 0.05 mg/L NAA + 100 mg/L Vc with the
highest proliferation coefficient (7.3) in 35 days. Moreover, the embryos from the 6-month warm stratified
seeds could proliferate on the suitable medium. The optimal medium for rooting was MS + 0.5 mg/L 2, 4-D +
Vitamin C 100 mg/L. The results confirmed that both the embryo developmental stage and appropriate
combination of chemicals significantly affected seed germination and In vitro embryo culture of this species.
