As shown in Table 2, medium supplemented with 2 mg/L NAA + 2 mg/L TDZ + 5% sucrose (w/v), induced somatic embryogenesis on the leaf explants within 4 weeks, and the other explants (stem and corm) had shown a later response, showing the somatic embryogenesis induction after 8 weeks of culture. It was observed that callus initiated from a leaf explant in the presence of 2 mg/L NAA + 2 mg/L TDZ formed somatic embryos earlier than other explants (stem and corm) in the MS medium. Among the four media tested, the MS medium was the best (frequency of embryo formation is 46.6%) for somatic embryo regeneration, followed by the CHE’ medium (with frequency 43.3%). The crocus species had shown positive and early somatic embryogenesis in terms of mean frequencies of leaf explants developing into embryos (46.6%) followed by the corm explants (36.6%) in the presence of the MS medium. The average number of somatic embryos formed per leaf explant was 2.9 embryos while per corm explant only 1.8 embryos were formed. Somatic embryos were tightly packed and inseparable (Fig. 1b and e). Such somatic embryos were separated from initial explants and sub-cultured into a fresh medium (2 mg/L IAA + 2 mg/LTDZ + 100 mg/L ABA) for proliferation (Fig. 3b-e). In the present study, somatic embryos further developed and enlarged after the addition of an auxin into the medium. Successive cultures increased the number of embryos and the embryos further developed into cotyledonary stages (Fig. 3a-e). Interestingly, globular embryos (Figs. 1 b and 3 a) were found to be predominant. Embryos were white or pale yellow in color, small and globular in shape appearing individually or in the form of clusters. The heart and torpedo developmental stages were not observed in the present study. Globular somatic embryos with the soft and shining surface (Fig. 3a) grew further to form somatic embryos with a notch that differentiated to form scutellum, coleoptiles, root and shoot pole (i.e., cotyledonary stage of embryos) ( Fig. 3a-e). We observed that the embryos grew up to the cotyledonary stage (maturation) in the same medium. Cotyledons, which initially appeared white in color, turned green and underwent germination (Fig. 3a, f). These regenerated embryos gradually formed shoots and roots, after further four weeks culture in the same media. Later, plantlet formation was achieved after culturing in half-strength MS medium containing no plant growth regulators, for six weeks (Fig. 3f).