Cyclamen persicum Mill cv. 'Halios': Somatic embryogenesis and phenotypic analysis of somatic embryo-derived plants

Cyclamen persicum Mill cv. 'Halios' is a commercial cultivar that is mass produced as pot-plant using F1 hybrid seeds. One of the best and efficient way to propagate in vitro this plant is to induce somatic embryos from callus. Immature ovaries at different stages of development, taken from mother plants, differing for the colour of the petals, were induced to form embryogenic callus into the medium suggested by Schwenkel and Winkelmann (1998). The juvenility of the explants was confirmed to be important for inducing pro-embryogenic masses. It was observed a clonal behaviour in the callus lines obtained: the calli showed different colour and compactness and also a different embryogenic potential. The genotype "white" (line or clone H VII) showed the highest potentiality to produce somatic embryos. The somatic embryos of all the embryogenic genotypes were able to mature, to germinate and to develop into complete plantlets, which were then transferred in vivo. In order to evaluate the homogeneity of the crop, for excluding somaclonal variation events, morphological features as plant height, leaf length, open flower height and petal number were measured. The results show a high homogeneity of the somatic embryo-derived plants that can be considered "true-to-type plants".