Epsilon Open Archive

Abstract

The genus Hypoxis contains some of southern Africa's most important wild medicinal species, a situation that has placed most of them amongst endangered species facing extinction. In this study, four Hypoxis species collected from Swaziland: H. argentea, H. filiformis, H. acuminata and H. hemerocallidea, were included to assess their potential for in vitro propagation in order to efficiently conserve these species in the future. Among all types of explants tested only corm explants and seeds gave rise to shoots under the in vitro conditions. For the corm establishment, H. filiformis was the most in vitro responsive species, which had 100% shoot regeneration with high shoot number when cultured on the MS medium supplemented with 3 mg·l-1 kinetin with a piece of shoot attached, while the highest mean shoot number (17) was obtained on the same medium, but with no shoot attachment to the corm explants. H. argentea was the next most responsive species in vitro with up to 70% establishment, while the other two species had only up to 20% of in vitro establishment. For the seed explants, up to 29% seed germination was obtained for H. argentea when the seed coats were crushed before the in vitro culture. The regenerated shoots were rooted in vitro and acclimatized in the greenhouse successfully