Morphological characterization, propagation strategy and identification of Boucerosia frerei accessions for their hanging basket exploitation- an attractive succulent with star-shaped flowers from the Northern Western Ghats of India

Abstract

Abstract Boucerosia frerei (G. D. Rowley) Mieve & Liede (formerly Frerea indica; family-Apocynaceae) is one of the little known, endemic and critically endangered succulent herbs with pretty flowers distributed sparsely in the Northern Western Ghats of India. Naturally, the plant shows phenotypic variation in numerous qualitative and quantitative characters especially stem, leaves and flowers. Consequently, this is challenging and stimulating taxa that merit considerable further attention of taxonomists, horticulturalist, gardeners, plant enthusiast etc. The present investigation describes the first report of collection, phenotypic characterization, commercially practicable propagation strategy development and identification of the accession for their usage in hanging baskets for B. frerei. The results highlighted some of the important and interesting features of this plant. A total of 32 morphological traits (9 qualitative and 23 quantitative) were noted for five accessions collected from Kate’s Point, Mahabaleshwar (KP), Meruling, Satara (MS), Sajjangad, Satara (SS), Purandar, Pune (PP) and YCIS, Satara (YCIS) and evaluated using ANOVA, PCA and cluster analysis. Ten morphological traits viz. plant height, stem color, number of nodes, number of roots, number of leaves, number of flowers, size, shape, architecture and seed weight contributed to the variation between the accessions. For succulents to be used for hanging baskets, plant height, number of leaves and floral and floral attributes (number, color, size, shape and architecture) are among the most important selection traits. Morphological characterization identified the Meruling, Satara (MS) as the potential accession for hanging baskets. A combination of soil, coconut coir and vermiculite (3:1:1) escalated the phenotypic traits in the aerial parts in hanging basket cultivation. Among the propagation techniques employed, vegetative propagation served superior over tissue-culture technique for large-scale propagation for its conservation and availing the stock material to floriculture industry.