Abstract

Fuchsia magellanica Lam. is a famous ornamental plant which is rarely found in Pakistan. Its beauty and uniqueness made it an important candidate for tissue culture studies especially for regeneration and multiplication purposes. Here, for the very first time we report a rapid and reliable method for the regeneration of F. magellanica in vitro. Axillary buds explants from one year old F. magellanica plant were cultured on Murashige and Skoog's (MS) (1962) medium without any hormone supplementation. Multiplication was carried out by using 1 and 0.1 mg/lit., 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA), respectively. For elongation purpose, 0.5 µM gibberellic acid (GA3) was used. 0.1 mg/lit. NAA was used to stimulate extensive root development within one month. After successful regeneration, the plantlets were acclimatized into the soil. This study is undertaken to perform in vitro clonal propagation and acclimatization of F. magellanica in order to get hundreds of F. magellanica plants in the laboratory in comparatively less time. Hence, it would be possible to regenerate F. magellanica plants in the laboratory and after successful acclimatization.

Key words: Axillary buds, clonal propagation, Murashige and Skoog, 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP), α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA), gibberellic acid (GA3), acclimatization.