Introduction
. ·lntlmrium plants are commonly cultivated as leaf and flower
ornamentals. The plants are used in floral arrangements and for
indoor decoration. Propagation of Anthuriwn by cuttings or dividing
the old plants is very slow and achieves only about an 8-fold
annual increase (Kamemoto 1968). Seed propagation takes long as
both seed development and the juvenile growth phase are slow
Therefore, tissue culture methods are being used for Anthuriwn
propagation. Pi erik and co-workers ( 1974, 1976, and 1979)
described in detail the conditions for i11 vitro plant propagation of
.1. andraermw11 using leaf explants. Similarly Lightbourn and
Prasad ( 1990) and Kuehnle and Sugii ( 1991) induced shoot multipi
ication and callus formation on leaf explants. This method could
result in the formation of off-types (Geier 1988). Finnie and Van
Staden ( 1986) cultured explants derived from leaves, petioles,
spathe, spadix and roots on different media to obtain better growth.
The i11 vitro culture of Anthurium by vegetative buds from mature
plants and by single node fragments was achieved by Kunisaki
( 1980) and Soczek and Hempel ( 1989) respectively. Sangama
( 1990) found that spadix explants of Anthurium had a better capacity
for regeneration than leaf segments on modified Nitsch media.
Somatic embryogenesis from leaf explants of Anthurium was
induced by Kuehule et at. ( 1992) and from ex plants from micropropagated
leaves in ..!. scher::erianum ( Hamidah et at. 1997).
There is no data relating to the use of seeds in the in vitro culture
of Anthurium wulraeamtm. Antlmriwn scher::erianum Schott. has
however, been cultivated from seed (Zens & Zimmer 1988). The
aim of this study was to detennine the requirements for plant propagation
from seeds of Antlmrium and the requirements for good
establishment in the soil. When clonal material is not required, the
use of seeds is a simpler, quicker, and therefore, more economical
way of multiplication than the methods developed by other workers.
In addition, multiplication from seeds would allow for the
'bulking-up' of 'unknown' genotypes that could then be selected