POLYPLOIDIZATION OF MARSDENIA FLORIBUNDA

In Hawaii, flowers of Marsdenia floribunda (Brongn.) are either strung as lei lengthwise, requiring about 25 flowers, or they are pierced through the side of the corolla, utilizing about 700 flowers. The production of a tetraploid cultivar possessing larger flowers with thicker, sturdier petals would benefit the lei industry, since fewer flowers would be required to produce the lei. The objective of this experiment was to create a tetraploid M. floribunda plant. Seeds of a diploid (2n = 22) M. floribunda plant were treated with 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.4% colchicine (distilled water used as controls) for 24 or 36 hours. After colchicine treatment, the seeds were sown in moist Pro-Mix ‘BX’ media under 50% shade. In total, 40 plants were tested for changes in ploidy level via flow cytometry. All the controls tested maintained diploid status while five mixoploids and one tetraploid plant were identified. The identified tetraploid was produced by treating seeds at 0.4% colchicine for 24 hours.