This communication reports detection of somaclonal variation among tissue culture-raised plants of Amorphophallus rivieri Durieu, an economically important crop in China, with high content of glucomannan in its corms. A population of regenerated plants was obtained from a single donor plant of A. rivieri via corm organogenesis, and 28 plants were randomly selected as a representative sample and subjected to analysis of somaclonal variation using inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Of the 26 ISSR primers screened, 13 gave distinct and reproducible band patterns, yielding 131 bands with an average of 10.1 bands per primer. Ten primers were polymorphic and generated 16 polymorphic bands with 12.2% mean polymorphism. Based on the ISSR data from the regenerated plants and the donor plant, Jaccard's similarity coefficients were calculated; they ranged from 0.961 to 1.000 with a mean of 0.982. A dendrogram was constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (Upgma); it showed that a majority of regenerated plants (including the donor plant) clustered closely, with a mean similarity coefficient of 0.987. Low somaclonal variation observed in the regenerated plants indicates that rapid propagation of A. rivieri via corm organogenesis is a practicable method with a low risk of genetic instability.

Centaurium erythraea plants obtained by indirect organogenesis are described in the paper. The plants were initiated from a single adventitious shoot regenerated from callus derived from the cotyledon of a 30-day-old seedling. The shoot was multiplied on MS medium supplemented with IAA (0.1 mg·L-1) and BAP (1.0 mg·L-1). The multiplication rate (28 shoots per culture within 4 weeks) was highest at the first subculture and decreased in further subcultures. The shoots were rooted on MS medium. The effect of IBA (0.1 mg·L-1) on the number of shoots forming roots differed depending on the composition of the basal medium (MS). The rooted shoots were transplanted to soil and grown in a greenhouse with 90% effectiveness. RAPD analysis was done with adventitious shoots of C. erythraea from in vitro culture. In shoots and whole plants regenerated from the callus tissue, secoiridoid content was determined by the HPLC method. We showed significant differences in morphology (leaf size, fresh and dry weight and height of plants) and changes in the DNA profiles as compared to earlier reports for shoot tip-derived shoots and plants of C. erythraea, but the two groups of plants biosynthesized the same qualitative pattern and similar levels of secoiridoids, up to 150 mg·g-1 dry weight; the increased biomass of plants regenerated from callus tissue makes them a better source of secondary metabolites.