Development of Mass Micropropagation Methodology to Enhance Cypripedium Floriculture

Problem Cypripedium is a genus of temperate terrestrial slipper orchids with very showy flowers that make excellent garden plants, and which have several medicinal properties related to the sedative, hypnotic and spasmolytic activity of rhizome extracts. Several species of Cypripedium were once common across the northern United States. Loss of habitat due to development as well as overcollection for the natural medicines and floriculture trades has made most species uncommon and several endangered. There is a large potential market for these plants which may only be slowly produced from seed. Many species of orchids are readily produced in large numbers of uniform plants using micropropagation from tissue explants. No such methods have been developed for Cypripedium making the plants uncommon and expensive. Purpose It is the purpose of this project to determine what concentrations of ratios or auxin and cytokinine growth factors are necessary to 1) induce the formation of callus tissue and its continued expansion and 2) what changes in growth factor concentrations and ratios result in differentiation of callus into protocorm-like bodies, and then plantlets. It is the goal of this project to identify methods that may be further developed into protocols that reproducibly induce callus formation by tissue explants, cause callus to differentiate, and which induce the differentiation of callus into protocorm-like bodies and then into plantlets with roots and shoots.