Mecardonia tenella is an attractive herbaceous native plant,
characterized by their intense green foliage and their abundant yellow
flowers. It is a very interesting plant for pot and/or garden. A trait
to improve in this species is the size of the flowers. The goal of the
present paper is to study the in vitro behaviour of M. tenella and to
establish a routine protocol for its micropropagation. For the in vitro
establishment of M. tenella, nodal segments were disinfected by
standard methods using ethanol/sodium hypochloride and cultured on
hormone-free MS medium, supplemented with a mixture of antibiotics and
an antifungal. In order to study the hormonal requirements of the
species, nodal segments were cultured on basal MS supplemented with
antibiotic/antifungal mixture and the following concentrations of BAP
and NAA (mg/L): 0.0; 0.25; 0.5 and 1.0. These plant regulators were
tested in all possible combinations. In vitro plants growing in
hormone-free medium were used as explant source. The best results were
obtained in the treatments containing 0.25 and 0.5 mg/l BAP with a
multiplication rate of 32 shoots per explant. The regenerated shoots
rooted spontaneously. When transferred to the greenhouse, the ex vitro
plants grew and flowered normally