depolymerization, were transferred to a hormone free
regeneration medium. In the first week of culture on solid
medium the embryos started to grow and turned green
(Fig. 1m), and small plantlets with one-two leaves and
roots developed. After about 1 month, conversion of most
somatic embryos into plants was completed. The frequency
of germination of protoplast-derived somatic embryos
was extremely high and thousands of plantlets were
obtained that made estimation of their real number hardly
possible. The plantlets showed no visible morphological
abnormalities and they relatively easily acclimatized to
ex vitro conditions with approximately 95% efficiency
(Fig. 1n-o). Most of plants regenerated from leaf protoplasts
of cv. Dolanka were diploids (93%, Table 2) and only
a few were tetraploids. Pollen viability of diploid regenerants
varied from 8 to 98%, reaching on average 57% and
these values were similar with those obtained for seedderived
plants (Table 2). After self-pollination of flowers
in the primary umbel on average 0.9 g of seeds was produced
(Table 2, Fig. 1q)