Plant Diversity ›› 2013, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (1): 73-80.DOI: 10.7677/ynzwyj201312064

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Germination Characteristics of Dendrophthoe pentandra Seeds

 LUO  Ya-Huang-1、2, ZHANG  Ling-1   

  1. 1 Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
    Mengla 666303, China; 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2012-05-01 Online:2013-01-25 Published:2012-05-30

Abstract:

The biological characteristics of seed germination and the effects of dispersal birds on the seed germination of Dendrophthoe pentandra were explored in this paper. Results showed that the seeds of D.pentandra were sensitive to the light and temperature. The germination percentage in light condition was significantly higher than that under dark condition. The most suitable temperature for the seed germination of D.pentandra was 20℃, it could be as high as 53.8%, and few seeds germinated when the temperature was 10℃ or 35℃. Our observation identified that Dicaeum concolor was the dominant disperser of D.pentandra seeds in our study sites. We also confirmed that the duration of germination become shorter when the pulp was manually peeled but the germination percentage did not significantly change. However, the germination percentage was significantly higher (69%) when the seeds were digested by D.concolor, to compare with those of intact seeds or manually extracted pulp seeds. Our results indicated that D.concolor made larger contribution to improve the seed germination of D.pentandra.

Key words: Dendrophthoe pentandra, Seed germination, Pulp, Temperature, Light, Dicaeum concolor

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