Germination and storage behaviour of seeds of the subtropical evergreen tree Daphniphyllum glaucescens (Daphniphyllaceae)
Ching-Te Chien A , Jerry M. Baskin B , Carol C. Baskin B C and Shun-Ying Chen A DA Division of Silviculture, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, 53 Nan-Hai Road, Taipei 10066, Taiwan.
B Department of Biology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0225, USA.
C Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40546-0312, USA.
D Corresponding author. Email: sychen@tfri.gov.tw
Australian Journal of Botany 58(4) 294-299 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT09232
Submitted: 10 December 2009 Accepted: 23 March 2010 Published: 22 June 2010
Abstract
Daphniphyllum glaucescens Blume ssp. oldhamii (Hemsl.) Huang is an important subtropical evergreen tree in Taiwan. Seeds of D. glaucescens have non-deep, simple, epicotyl morphophysiological dormancy, and a minimum of 10–12 weeks is required for the first step of seedling production, i.e. hypocotyl emergence. It is not known how to decrease the time for seedling production and how to store seeds for retention of viability. We determined the effects of (i) gibberellic acid and cold-stratification on germination (hypocotyl emergence) and (ii) storage temperature and seed moisture content (MC) on germinability. Exogenous application of GA3 and of GA4 promoted germination and increased the germination rate. Moist cold-stratification at 5°C also promoted germination; the longer the stratification period, the faster the rate of germination. More than 70% of seeds (fresh seeds, MC = 37.6%) dried to an MC of 6.4%, 8.5% and 25.5% (fresh weight basis) retained germinability after a 1-month storage at 5°C, whereas germination percentage decreased to 0–2% after a 12-month storage at the same temperature. Germination percentage of seeds dried to the same MC and stored at 15°C decreased to 0% after 8 months, whereas seeds stored at −20°C did not germinate even after just 1 month of storage. The present evidence suggests that seeds of D. glaucescens have intermediate rather than orthodox or recalcitrant storage behaviour.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant (NSC 97-2313-B-054-003-MY3) from the National Science Council, Taiwan, and a grant from the Council of Agriculture, the Executive Yuan, Taiwan (Project No. MM9806-2261). We thank Chang-Yen Chen, Wen-Yu Hsu, Ta-Yuan Chien, Yen-Wei Chang and Kai-Chun Yang for technical assistance.
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