Agronomical and chemical variability of Colchicum autumnale accessions

Abstract

Meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale) is an undomesticated plant from whose seeds the alkaloids colchicine and colchicoside are extracted and used pharmaceutically. Research was conducted towards domesticating meadow saffron in which inter- and intra-genetic variability of accessions was studied. Colchicine, 3-demethylcolchicine and colchicoside were assayed in plants of six accessions collected from natural sites in eastern France. These were cultivated at two sites and studied during 1 or 2 yr. Plants from 70 initial transplanted corms of one accession were studied individually for 4 yr to determined intra-accession variability and, as spontaneous vegetative multiplication of corms occurred, comparisons among plants from one initial transplanted corm were also made. For the main characteristics, seed dry weight (SDW) per plant, alkaloid content and colchicine:colchicoside ratio, the inter-accession variability was lower than the intra-accession variability. The results suggest that vegetative propagation of selected genotypes could improve alkaloid content by about 80% and improve SDW per plant by about 300%. Key words: Colchicine, colchicoside, Colchicum autumnale, medicinal plant, genetic variability