Adventitious shoot regeneration and in vitro flowering of Anthemis xylopoda O.Schwarz, a critically endangered Turkish endemic

A protocol has been developed for the direct induction of adventitious shoots from leaf explants of in vitro raised Anthemis xylopoda O.Schwarz, a critically endangered Turkish endemic. The Murashige and Skoog (MS) media supplemented with N6–benzyladenine (BA), kinetin (KIN), and thidiazuron (TDZ) were used in regeneration experiments. BA at 0.5 mg L-1 concentration was chosen as the optimal treatment because it yielded the maximal number of adventitious shoots with the best quality (6.70 ± 1.05 shoots/explant). The highest mean of maximum shoot length was observed in MS media containing 0.2 mg L-1 BA (4.30 ± 0.48 cm). Regenerated shoots rooted best on ½MS medium containing 0.5 mg L-1 indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). Flower buds also occurred during rooting. For this study, the existence of auxins in the medium was essential for in vitro flower bud induction. IBA was found to be more efficient than indole- 3-acetic acid (IAA) in the induction of flower buds of A. xylopoda. The maximum flowering percentage was obtained when the shoots were cultured on ½MS medium containing 1.0 mg L-1 IBA. Flowers produced in vitro were morphologically normal and yellow.